Chapter III.

GENERAL ISSUES OF CRIMINALISTIC TACTICS

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  • Questions for control
  • List of literature

    • I. Lecture material

  • 1. Subject, tasks, sources and means of forensic tactics
  • 2. Tactics of investigative (search) actions
  • 3. Tactical techniques, tactical combinations, tactical operations
  • 4. Investigations of the situation. Tactical decision and tactical risk. Forensic recommendation

    • 1. Subject, tasks, sources and means of forensic tactics

    Forensic tactics –are the intellectual core of criminology, its logical and psychological basis. Methods, means, techniques of forensic tactics are reliable tool in the hands of subjects of law enforcement activities.

    In fact, the emergence of the foundations of forensic tactics, as well as all forensic knowledge, occurred already during the formation of the most ancient states: there appeared such bodies as police, courts and prisons, which are inextricably linked with the need to create tools and methods of their activities including those which possess, in the present sense, forensic meaning.

    During the formation of criminology as an independent field of knowledge tactics was seen as part of the police (criminal) technique. The writings of scholars of Austria-Hungary and Germany, G. Gross, A. Weingardt, G. Schneikert, V. Shtiber and others reflected the first notions of forensic tactics.

    Among the foreign works that had a significant impact on the further development of forensic tactics, it is necessary to note the work of G. Gross, in which the author not only summarized the experience of investigative practice, but also proposed using methods developed by him and some predecessors to work on the investigation of crimes. Worthy of note is the work of the scientist A. Weingardt, known at the beginning of the 20th century, "Criminal tactics. Guide for the Investigation of Crimes ", which was published in Russia in 1910 with the reissue in 1912. The author submits to the criminal tactics the whole set of forensic police methods of combating crime, as well as methods and instructions for the prevention, termination, detection and investigation of crimes. In fact, the author includes in this section the whole set of any means that can assist in the investigation of a crime.

    Summarizing, one can conclude that in its formation, forensic tactics has passed the following stages:

    In the military sphere, the term "tactics" (gamma tactica - the skill of building troops) is defined as an integral part of martial arts, including the theory and practice of preparation and conducting of a battle; the methods and techniques chosen for fighting. In this definition, the essence of tactics is understood as the ability to find or create a situation in which a decisive blow will be inflicted on the enemy in the most vulnerable to his place (position), that is the ability to outwit the enemy.

    Generalized is the definition of forensic tactics as a part of the science of criminology, which includes a system of scientific regulations and practical guidelines developed on their basis for the organization and planning of pre-trial investigation and judicial proceedings, determination of the optimal behavior of investigating persons, methods of conducting investigative (search), secret investigatory, procedural actions during the court proceedings aimed at establishing the circumstances to be proved in the criminal proceedings and, gathering and evaluating evidence.

    Thus, forensic tactics can be characterized as: 1) an integral part of the science of criminology; 2) a system of scientific provisions; 3) a set of recommendations.

    Structurally, tactics is divided into two subsections. The first contains the so-called general provisions: the concept, system, tasks, sources and principles of forensic tactics; the doctrine of the forensic version, the organization and planning of the investigation; the particularities of the interaction of the investigator with other law enforcement units, the use of expert assistance, and the public in the investigation. The second unit includes provisions on the tactics of conducting investigatory (search) and secret investigatory actions, procedural actions during the trial, covering the entire tactical complex of their possible implementation. This understanding of tactics and its structure has the most general character.

    Concerning the tasks of forensic tactics, it should be noted that they are formed depending on the level of development of the science of criminology and the needs of practical activities. Based on their diversity and the need for systematization, the task of forensic tactics should be divided into general, special and specific.

    The general task of forensic tactics is to facilitate the achievement of the objectives of criminal proceedings for the protection of individuals, society and the state from criminal offenses, the protection of the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of participants in criminal proceedings, ensuring a prompt complete and impartial investigation and judicial review of criminal proceedings by the proper forces, means methods and ways of forensic tactics.

    Special tasks include: development of tactical techniques, tactical combinations and tactical operations; improvement of organizational and tactical bases of pre-trial investigation and judicial proceedings; development and improvement of forensic means and methods of crime prevention; study and generalization of the best practices of judicial, investigative and expert activity, its tactical and organizational principles.

    General and special tasks are realized through solving specific problems, which are solved by science at the current stage, that is primarily based on the needs of practice. For example: a review of the system of tactical techniques in counter-parties; development of tactics of investigators, secret investigative (search) actions; recommendations for use in the investigation of the factor of surprise, etc.

    Sources of forensic tactics can be divided into legislative, scientific and practical.

    The legislative sources of forensic tactics include the Constitution of Ukraine, the CPC of Ukraine, the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the Laws of Ukraine "On the National Police", "On Operational Investigative Activity", "On Forensic Expertise" and other, as well as international treaties of Ukraine, consent of which is provided by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, regulating human rights and freedoms in criminal proceedings, the principles of their realization, implementation of measures of international cooperation.

    The scientific sources of forensic tactics are the modern achievements of other sciences: legal (criminal procedure, criminal law, the theory of operative-search activity, etc.) and non-legal (philosophy, logic, psychology, computer science), as well as the provisions of other sections of the science of criminology (general theory of forensics, forensic technology, forensic methodology).

    Practical sources of forensic tactics include materials of investigative, expert, judicial practice, from where the criminalistics tactics receive "orders" for the development of urgent issues of practical activities that require scientific substantiation.

    The means of forensic tactics are the means of achieving the set tasks in the activity of investigation and prevention of criminal offenses, which belong to the sphere of forensic tactics. The investigator, or another competent entity (prosecutor, officer of the operational unit, court) chooses one or another tool on the basis of a thorough examination of the circumstances of the investigated proceeding, the particular investigative situation, the presence and nature of the opposition from individual investigators and other conditions.

    The means of forensic tactics include:


    2. Tactics of investigative (search) actions

    According to the CPC of Ukraine, an investigative (wanted) action should be understood as a measure adopted by the CPC of Ukraine that is used by competent persons to collect, study, evaluate and use evidence in a particular criminal proceeding. They have cognitive and at the same time, the procedural nature and the wanted direction, the essence of which is the attempt of the procedural person to find and properly record in the relevant procedural sources the actual data relevant for the criminal proceedings. No less important purpose of investigation (search) actions is to check the evidence obtained earlier in this criminal investigation or other established facts.

    Investigative actions conducted by the investigator, other competent entities during the pre-trial investigation, is one of the main ways of gathering evidence aimed at establishing the circumstances of the criminal proceedings.

    Investigative (search) actions include:

    1) interrogation (Articles 224-226, 232, 351-354, 356 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    2) the presentation of a person for identification (Articles 228-232, 355 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    3) review (Part 3 of Article 214, Art. 237, 238, 239, 361 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    4) exhumation of the corpse (Article 239 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    5) search (Article 234-236 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    6) investigative experiment (Article 240 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    7) the exploration of a person (Article 241 of the CPC of Ukraine);

    8) conducting an examination (Article 242 of the CPC of Ukraine).

    Each investigative (wanted) action is characterized according to the tactics of its conduct.

    Actually, the tactics of each investigative (search) action is subjected to the goals of achieving maximum effectiveness of its conduct and is a certain system. Thus, if we consider the structure of tactics as a system, then the content of its constituent parts - subsystems - represents a certain stage of the investigative (search) action.

    In general, the sequence of these stages is as follows:

    a) preparation for conducting an investigative (search) action;

    b) carrying out an investigative (search) action;

    c) fixing the course and results of the investigative (search) action;

    d) evaluation of the results and determination of their place and value in the system of evidence in the given criminal proceeding.

    Preparation for an investigative (wanted) action. One of the mandatory conditions of this stage is the construction of an imaginary dynamic model of the course of investigatory (search) action. Characteristic for the stage of preparation is the implementation of a number of organizational and tactical tasks:

    Carrying out an investigative (wanted) action. At this stage, the planned tasks are implemented. This is a period of verification of the versions by confirming or refuting the formulated conclusions. General organizational and tactical tasks which can be solved during direct conducting of investigative (search) action are as follows:

    It should be remembered that the process of obtaining information used in this method of cognition will depend on whether it relates to a group of verbal, nonverbal or mixed investigative (search) actions.

    Verbal investigative (wanted) actions are aimed at obtaining evidence from people through the use of a set of special techniques (survey, description, analysis, observation, comparison, analogy, identification, modeling), organoleptic methods of logical, psychological, physical and other nature and appropriate means. The common features of verbal investigators (searches) are the special nature of the source of information and its receipt on the basis of free expression of will and judgments of the source. Verbal investigatory actions include interrogation and such kind of interrogation as simultaneous interrogation of two or more interrogated persons (Part 9 of Article 214 of the CPC of Ukraine).

    The essence of non-verbal investigatory (search) actions consists in the direct perception of the material sources of evidentiary information, which may be the objects of the attack, the means of committing the criminal offense, the situation, the objects and things discovered on the site of the events that are relevant to the proceedings. In this case, methods of observation, description, comparison, organoleptic techniques, separate and comparative analysis, contact and non-contact methods are used; physical, chemical, biological methods and related techniques. This group of investigative (search) activities include review, exploration, search, exhumation of the corpse, appointment of expertise.

    Investigative actions of complex (mixed) nature involve receiving information from a complex source - the system of "people-things", through the psychic reflection of the projection of the ideal to the material and associated with the use of complex special methods for obtaining evidence: experiment, modeling, and the involvement of specialists, technical means. These actions are intended to display objects that simultaneously contain information in verbal and physical forms and include a presentation for identification, an investigative experiment.

    Thus, the applied organizational and tactical measures depend on the affiliation of a certain investigative action to a group of verbal, nonverbal or mixed.

    Fixing of the progress and results. The task of this stage is to display all the contents of the investigative (search) action and the results obtained as accurate as possible. Organizational tactical measures are directed at the choice or creation of conditions that ensure the most effective use of means and methods of fixing evidence.

    In general, the fixation of evidence information has several forms: verbal, graphic, subject, visual-image. According to Art. 103 CPC of Ukraine, investigatory (wanted) during the criminal proceedings can be recorded: 1) in the protocol; 2) on the carrier of information, in which by means of technical means certain procedural actions are recorded; 3) in the journal of the court session.

    It is important that if according to Art. 104 CPC of Ukraine, with the help of technical means, interrogation is recorded, the text of the testimony may not be entered into the relevant protocol, provided that none of the participants in the procedural action insists on it. In this case, the protocol indicates that the testimony is recorded on the medium of information attached to it.

    However, the indicated information does not cancel the record form of fixation, but only simplifies it if there are grounds provided for by the legislation. This provision should be applied in certain cases, because if the interrogation is of a conflict nature, the interrogator is a minor, or a person with the difficult health conditions, such simplification of the protocol form of fixation should not be used.

    Thus, the process of obtaining evidence in the course of conducting an investigative action is connected with the decision of tasks of protocol fixation, drawing up of annexes to the protocol (Article 105 CPC of Ukraine): specially made copies, samples of objects, things and documents; written explanations of specialists who participated in conducting the relevant procedural action; transcripts, audio and video recordings of procedural actions; photographic tables, circuits, casts, carriers of computer information and other materials that explain the contents of the protocol, the certification of such information.

    The fixation of the course and the results of the investigative action is both an independent stage and a component that accompanies the whole process of its implementation, provides the proof value of the results obtained.

    The process of fixing evidence is complex and has two aspects: procedural and forensic. At the forefront in the procedural sense of fixation is the procedural form of certification and consolidation of evidence. The forensic aspect of the fixation is of a substantive nature, that is, the focus is on actions for fixing the course and the results of the investigative (search) action, the extraction of trace information or material evidence, and the means by which these measures are carried out.

    An assessment of the results obtained and the determination of their place and value in the system of evidence in this criminal proceeding is the final stage of the investigative action. The analysis of the work performed and the results obtained is necessary both for checking the reliability of the evidence and for solving the issue of its evidential value and ways of its further use. At this stage, the set of investigative errors and their consequences is detected; the problem of the expediency (or inexpediency) of the repeated conduct of this action is solved as well. The assessment document and its annexes are also considered to be the subject to review, in which the course and results of the action taken are presented in terms of its objectivity, completeness, logic and consistency of presentation, clarity of the formulating, the availability of necessary requisites.

    The foregoing reflects the structural and systemic approach to determining the tactics of investigative (search) action. Only such an understanding can lead to the effective development of its constituent elements, which are inextricably tied to one single system of actions, mental processes and volitional decisions.


    3. Tactical techniques, tactical combinations, tactical operations

    The tactical method is the main element of forensic tactics. The definition of tactical admission as a method for the implementation of a specific task, based on the psychological mechanism of its realization, which is the most rational and effective in certain situations (V.Shepitko), is quite well-founded.

    The psychological mechanism of tactical admission implies:

    Characteristics of tactical admission involves taking into account such a feature as situational conditionality. Investigatory situation has a significant impact both on the choice of tactical methods, and on the feasibility of their application in various circumstances.

    Application of tactical method is strictly limited to the requirements of their admissibility. The main criteria for admissibility of tactical techniques are as follows: legality; scholarship; ethics; selectivity of influence; compliance with the investigative situation, etc.

    Classification of tactical techniques:

    1. Depending on the content and purpose of the tactics, there are:

    2. In terms of the sequence of solving tactical tasks:

    3. By the type of investigative (search) actions:

    4. According to the range of use:

    5. According to the direction of the target:

    6. According to the nature of the information:

    For the optimal solution of the tasks of criminal proceedings, the conduct of investigative (search) actions takes place in a systematic combination of tactical and forensic means.

    A tactical combination is a combination of tactical techniques and other measures aimed at establishing certain circumstances or solving a practical task and the result of this objective and the investigative situation of a separate investigative (search), secret investigation (search), procedural action.

    Consider the following main types of tactical combinations:

    A tactical operation is a complex of investigatory, secret investigative (search) actions, organizational, technical and other measures that are carried out according to the agreed plan and aimed at solving a specific tactical task during the investigation.

    Typical examples of tactical operations are the establishment of the deceased person, the establishment of accomplices in a criminal offense, sales channels for stolen property, and others. In the methodology for investigating mercenary crimes, an operation such as "Property Search" is allocated. During the investigation of economic crimes, the tactical operation "Document" (to ensure the collection of the necessary documentary data) occupies an important place. Under the condition of investigating crimes of common criminal nature, this is a tactical operation "Detention on the ground of a criminal offense" (an operation that is carried out to establish the mechanism, methods and tracks of the commission of the crime, those involved in it). Tactical operations require the development of special plans that must be in line with the general plan of the investigation.


    4. Investigations of the situation. Tactical decision and tactical risk. Forensic recommendation

    Criminal proceedings are carried out in specific conditions of time, place, situation, based on the actions and behavior of persons involved in its sphere and under the influence of other factors. This complex interconnection system is the particular situation in which the investigator and other competent actors work.

    The above situation, common in criminalistics, received the general name of the investigative situation.

    At each stage of the investigation - the initial, the following, the final one - there may be numerous and varied investigative situations, that is, the circumstances and conditions determined by objective and subjective factors. In other words, the investigation process is a combination of different investigative situations, which requires their solution at the appropriate stages and individual segments of the time.

    The investigative situation is understood by the scholars as a situation or circumstance that prevails at a certain moment in the investigation of a criminal offense.

    The formation of an investigative situation is influenced by the following factors:

    The combination of all these factors determines the individual character of each investigative situation at a certain point in the criminal proceedings.

    Situation investigations can be classified:

    1. According to the time of the occurrence of the investigation:

    2. According to the relations between the participants:

    3. In relation to the achievement of the purpose of the investigation:

    4. By the degree of community:

    In investigative practice there is a repetition of investigative situations, which creates the preconditions for their typing. Regarding typical situations, one can outline an algorithm for investigatory actions in the process of obtaining evidence. Knowledge of typical situations allows not only to predict their occurrence in appropriate conditions as regular, but also to choose appropriate means, methods and ways of investigation.

    In accordance with the investigative situation, the investigator makes tactical decisions, while selecting the objective of tactical influence on the investigative situation in general or its individual components, the course and results of the investigation process and its elements, with the definition of methods, ways and means of achieving this goal.

    The tactical decision process includes:

    a) analysis of the existing investigative situation;

    b) determination of the goals and tasks to be achieved for its solution;

    c) the choice of means and methods for achieving goals and objectives;

    d) realization of tactical decision.

    Tactical decisions are divided into procedural and non-procedural. The first is the decision on the choice of investigator, secret investigatory (wanted) and other procedural actions. Non-procedural tactical decisions are methods and means of realization of procedural decisions by providing them with organizational and tactical measures.

    Consequently, tactical decision is the willful act of the investigator, other competent subjects, which exists to determine the purpose, as well as the means and methods of its achieving. Hence, any tactical solution must meet a number of requirements: legality, ethics, reasonableness, timeliness, reality of execution.

    The tactical decision consists of three parts:

    The purpose of a tactical decision may be to change the investigative situation in general or its individual components in a direction favorable to the investigation; maximally effective use of unfavorable investigative situation; achieving tactical superiority over counter-tracing individuals; use of surprise, especially at the initial stage of the proceedings; providing methodological and offensive investigations.

    The optimal use of tactical techniques and their systems involves studying the problem of tactical risk. In psychology, risk is defined as a situational characteristic of activity, which consists of the uncertainty of its outcome and possible adverse consequences in the event of failure.

    In criminology, tactical risk can be defined as the performance of investigators, other competent actors in the conditions of possible adverse effects.

    The tactical risk is a logical component of the investigation, which is inherent in the investigator's activity due to several reasons: a shortage of time, especially at the beginning of the criminal proceedings, "hot pursuit" investigation; information uncertainty of the situation, lack of data to make a well-balanced decision.

    The complexity of decision-making by the investigator is caused by the degree of uncertainty in the situation, which involves the onset of ambiguous consequences - positive or negative. The challenge is to choose the position of the lowest tactical risk, anticipate negative consequences in advance and anticipate measures to prevent them.

    That is, tactical risk is associated with situational conditionality, objective (availability of sources of evidence, technical equipment of pre-trial investigation bodies) and subjective (experience of the investigator, his theoretical readiness) factors.

    Facing the tactical risk, it is necessary to predict the possible occurrence of negative results as a consequence of the implementation of a tactical solution; varying evidentiary information in order to achieve the objectives and determine the admissibility of tactical risk in a particular situation.

    In a number of cases, we can talk about minimizing tactical risk, which is:

    The proper choice of means of forensic tactics and taking into account the peculiarities of their implementation is facilitated by the use of the forensic science developed on the basis of the study of the practice recommendations. Forensic recommendation is a science practice advice, but not a one-time wish, designed for a one-time act of behavior, and a certain amount of knowledge intended for repeated use for a relatively long time.

    According to the degree of expression of criminalistics recommendations can be divided into proposals: a) on the use of specific scientific and technological achievements; b) the procedure and conditions for the use of a particular instrument, method or technique for solving specific problems; c) on the use of practical means for other tasks or in other conditions.