Cumulation of Crimes

in criminal law, the presence of two or more sets of elements of a crime in a person’s actions. Cumulation of crimes may arise from the commission of several criminal acts at different times, in which case it is called real cumulation. It may also arise from the commission of a single act that contains the elements of several crimes, in which case it is ideal cumulation.

Under Soviet criminal legislation, the court, in passing sentence upon a person whose actions involve a cumulation of crimes, first designates punishment for each crime separately and then for the cumulation of crimes, in so doing evaluating the character of the person’s criminal activity as a whole.