Digital Criminology: the Mmethod of Digital Profiling of an Unidentified Criminal's Behavior

Abstract

The authors examine the specific features of the digital environment to analyze contemporary approaches to the system of instruments of studying illegal actions in cyberspace. They state that law enforcement bodies should adapt key characteristics of the digital environment to the accomplishment of investigation tasks. The authors analyze the possibilities offered by digital profiling and modeling of the digital profile (portrait) of an unidentified criminal through mathematical methods of modeling and prediction in investigating and solving serial crimes, including cybercrimes. An extensive review of Russian and foreign publications is used to study the evolution of scientific ideas regarding the profiling method, which is the basis for the digital profiling of the behavioral model of an unidentified criminal in the digital environment. It is stated that none of the branches of criminal law, including criminology and criminalistics, could alone solve the interdisciplinary problem of the investigation and detection of crimes in the digital environment. The authors prove that it is necessary to integrate the knowledge of these branches and to conduct interdisciplinary research involving experts, i.e. to duly streamline the organization of those activities that together make up the investigation and detection of crimes. Based on the content of the concept «modus operandi», which lies at the heart of building an abstract model of criminal behavior, they conclude that it could be used to investigate and solve crimes in the digital environment and determine the specific features of the content of its structural elements. The comparative analysis of the contents of the key stages of profiling is used to prove the expediency of employing the whole range of logical and mathematical methods of analysis to process and analyze criminological information, which leads to the necessity of both critically reviewing them and finding ways to go beyond the traditional approaches. The authors describe the essence of the mathematical extrapolation method, which is most commonly used in criminology for the quantitative analysis of knowledge regarding objects, phenomena, processes, as well as the possibility of using it in digital profiling. As a result of this research based on the systemic approach, the authors state the objective character of links between the traditional and the digital profiling, point out the existing links and regularities, which allow them to reduce the essence of the examined phenomena to building a model through the recreation, in the process of investigation, of the mental trace pattern and then using it to find the guilty person.