The Content and Interrelations of the Concepts of Crime Prevention (Prophylaxis and Prevention) by an Investigator

Abstract

At the present stage of the development of science, there is no consensus on the relationship between the concepts of “prevention/prophylaxis” and “prevention”/preduprezhdenie (Russian) of crimes, even despite a large number of studies on certain aspects of preventive activities of the investigator. At present, there are three main approaches to the correlation of the terms under consideration: prophylaxis and prevention as identical notions, preventive/prophylactic activity has a function of prevention, and vice versa, preventive activity acts as a generic concept for the function of prophylaxis. Crime prevention in terms of informing, warning, includes prophylaxis, prevention and suppression of crime. All these elements are the stages. And prophylaxis is the first stage of preventive activity, as it affects the causes and conditions of illegal, criminally punishable human behavior. Prophylaxis is aimed at eliminating an intent to commit a socially dangerous act by eliminating the causes and conditions that contribute to this. Prevention is aimed at inducing a person who has the intent to commit a crime to refrain from the illegal type of behavior planned by him. The suppression of a crime is aimed at stopping the implementation of a criminal plan, that is, the criminal activity that has already taken place, as well as at minimizing the criminal result. At the same time, all these elements of preventive activity take place at different points in time. However, prophylaxis can be carried out both during the investigation of a specific crime or out of it through the investigator’s talks to employees, schoolchildren, students, through studies containing information about criminal cases. The lack of a unified approach to the ratio of prophylactic and preventive activities is also due to the lack of codification of these notions. Despite the fact that the legislator focuses on the prophylaxis and prevention of specific types of crimes such as terrorism, extremism in certain regulatory legal acts, there is still no clear distinction between them.