Sources and Principles of Private Methods Development for High-Tech Crimes Investigation

Abstract

A distinctive feature of modern crimes is its qualitative complication and rapid development of hightech crimes characterized by the widespread use of the latest information technologies. As there is quite a low response rate in adapting the norms of law and judicial and investigative practice to new types of crimes, criminalistic theory and practice lag behind the ongoing changes. One of the aspects of this lag is the lack of development of private forensic methods for investigating high-tech crimes. The paper shows that the difficulties in the formation of such methods primarily result from negative factors related to the specifics of its sources. The shortcomings of the system regulation of public relations in the field of countering high-tech crime, contradictions and inconsistencies in the application of criminal and criminal procedure legislation are among such factors for the legal norms source. The difficulties in using scientific knowledge are associated with their weak formation, which is natural for new types of crimes. Low representativeness of empirical data presented by insufficiently developed forensic investigative practice plays a negative role, which significantly complicates the generalization of the experience of investigations. The paper proves that a promising approach to overcoming problems in building a private method for investigating new types of crimes is the development of a predictive method that reflects the most likely features of the relevant crimes, trends in their development and patterns of their investigation. The author proposes and substantiates some principles of creating such a method, including the expansion of the role of the general criminalistic methodology, the use of the provisions of private methods developed for close groups of crimes, as well as the extrapolation of empirical data on crimes with similar criminalistic characteristics to a new group of crimes. It is shown that in conditions of insufficient representativeness of forensic investigative practice, the involvement of the method of expert assessments is of particular importance.