Criminal Experience Research Articles

Analysis of factors influencing police investigation work based on principal component analysis

Abstract In this paper, the generation and carrier models of criminal psychological traces are synthesized and applied to detect criminal cases by constructing a criminal psychological trace model. Secondly, the psychological state of the interrogated person is identified using the first and second layers of the principal component analysis network, and the psychological characteristics of the interrogated person are extracted based on the grey time series improved principal component analysis (GPCA) method. Finally, the psychological state of the interrogated person was analyzed by the psychological test of the criminal psychological trace model. The results showed that the AUC of the CIT psychological test effect on criminal experience was 0.638, while the CIT psychological test effect using the criminal psychological trace model was 0.875. This indicates that the research method in this paper can better understand the criminal psychological traces in the police investigation and their effects on the interrogated person and improve the effectiveness and accuracy of the police investigation.

Factors of forming an aggressive motive for crimes against life and health committed with the use of firearms

Domestic criminological science faces an important task of developing measures to prevent violent assaults with the use of firearms and their factors. The purpose of the article is to develop crime prevention measures taking into account the determination of crimes against life and health committed with the use of firearms. The article’s task is to determine the motives of crimes against life and health committed with the use of firearms.
 The mechanism of criminal behavior can be understood as a system of correlated algorithmic actions conditioned by a favorable objective reality, a set of mental states and processes, and behavioral acts sufficient for realizing a socially dangerous intention. One of the aspects of this algorithm is the formation of a criminal motive as a prerequisite for the will (decision) to commit a crime. The main motive of the violent crimes with the use of firearms that we investigate is aggressive. Additional motives: 1) selfish, 2) hooligan, 3) revenge, 4) jealousy, 5) intimidation; 6) self-defense.
 Formation of motives for criminal offenses against life and health with the use of firearms occurs under the influence of various circumstances of the surrounding social environment.
 The use of a weapon during an attack significantly increases the attacker’s ability to overcome the physical resistance of a victim who does not have such a weapon of protection. The understanding of this circumstance is a motivating factor in the criminal’s behavior. According to this, the spread of illegal firearms from the areas of hostilities will obviously negatively impact the country’s criminogenic situation.
 Victims sometimes use their provocative behavior to form a motive for aggressive actions against them.
 A low educational level can contribute to the formation of antisocial intentions in a person and their implementation in illegal behavior.
 Previous criminal experience is a significant factor in the formation of criminal motivation of persons who commit violent crimes with the use of firearms.
 The specified circumstances must be taken into account when developing measures to prevent criminal offenses (crimes) against life and health with the use of firearms.

PSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS OF MURDERS IN CHUVASHIA (2011–2020)

Murders are one of the most important causes of mortality in Russia, and most aggressors suffer from mental disorders. The purpose of the research is to study the structure of mental disorders of murderers and its features in Chuvashia in 2011–2020. Materials and methods. The forensic psychiatric examination examined 507 murderers (409 men and 98 women) aged 15 to 83 years (average age – 40.65±13.82 years). Mental disorders, medical, social and criminal indicators of murderers, as well as 507 victims were taken into account. Results. 474 murders were committed single-handedly, 14 – in a group of 2-4 people; ordinary murders accounted for 96.5%, those with two or more victims – 3.5%. Post-homicidal suicides in aggressors were observed in 2.5%. Mental disorders were qualified in forensic psychiatric examinations in 72.6% of the subjects, most often they were alcohol dependence (20.1%), especially among women (27.6%). Among other mental disorders, personality disorders (13.8%), organic mental disorders (12.8%), schizophrenia (6.3%), mental retardation (2.8%) and comorbid mental disorders (16.8%) were noted. 10.5%, most often patients with schizophrenia and organic mental disorders, are recognized as insane during forensic psychiatric examinations. The instruments (method) of murder in 94% of cases were piercing and cutting objects, "blunt weapons" and strangulation. Women were significantly more likely to use "bladed weapons", and men – to "blunt weapons". More than 40% of the victims were family members, more than 50% were acquaintances, friends, and only 6.3% were strangers. Women were significantly more likely to kill their spouses (unmarried cohabitants etc.) and children, and men – acquaintances. 84.0% of criminals were intoxicated at the time of the murder. Both the aggressor and the victim drank together in 59% of cases. Insane murderers (with pronounced mental disorders) were significantly older, had a lower level of education, family status, hereditary burden of mental disorders, various organic harms, they killed two or more victims more often and committed post-homicidal suicides (7.5%). Conclusions. Almost three–quarters of all murderers had mental disorders, and one in five had mental disorders due to alcohol abuse. The leading cause of the murders was conflicts arising between familiar people and/or family members against the background of alcohol intoxication. A certain role was played by the criminal experience of the participants in the incident, long-term hostile relations, readiness to inflict bodily harm to the victim and murder another person.

CONDUCTING A PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH OF PRISONERS

The article is devoted to the analysis of difficulties arising in the work of expert psychologists when conducting research on persons serving sentences in prisons or in pre-trial detention centres (prisoners). The ways to overcome such difficulties are proposed in order to minimize the possible risks in the process of interaction between an expert psychologist and prisoners, which may cause significant psychological barriers during the process of their communication and create obstacles in the expert examination by psychologists with little experience in this very work. The article outlines the psychological tools and steps that an expert psychologist can use in their work, such as: 1) informing the examinee about what exactly will happen during the psychological examination 2) take into account the conditions of arrival (escort) of the prisoner for psychological examination 3) using the open position of the expert 4) using interest to get the person under investigation motivated 5) taking into consideration the prisoner’s attempts to influence and form an appropriate role position from the side of the psychologist 6) Using atypical diagnostic tools during the process of testing a prisoner’s person. It is considered that the examination of persons with a certain criminal experience and who are in prison differs significantly from the examination of other examinees in terms of the conditions of diagnostic interview and testing. The negative position of a prisoner to the test, the conditions of arriving for the examination, and the reluctance to open up in the situation of the test can greatly complicate the work of a psychological expert. The article highlights and identifies the issue that the decisive factor in conducting a psychological examination of prisoners is not the general training of the expert or the ability to use diagnostic tools, but the capacity to get the prisoner’s trust even in difficult conditions, to make the prisoner feel safe in communicating with the psychologist, and to maintain the sub-expert’s interest in undergoing the examination throughout the entire process of diagnostic interaction.

보호관찰관의 지지와 준수사항 위반과의 관계

This study aims at investigating the relationships between supportive attitude of probation officers toward criminals and the revocation of probation. In particular, the current study focuses on identifying crucial factors that are associated with the violations of probation conditions under electronic monitoring. It is significant to find out the key factors that might reduce the numbers of violation of EM conditions in order to prevent recidivism in South Korea. In 2022, Korean Ministry of Justice announced the additional implementation of electronic anklets device program on offenders who committed stalking with a partial revision of the Electronic Monitoring Device Attachment Act. There have been wide controversial criticism toward the expansion of the Electronic Monitoring Device Attachment Act from September 2008, which the law was uninitiated. In this regard, this study attempts to examine what factors can increase the effectiveness of the EM with the consideration of supportive attitude of officers in terms of reduction of violations of probation conditions under electronic monitoring. In addition, the present study highlights the association between the role of probation officers and the level of probation revocation. “Survey of the Operational Realities of Electronic Monitoring on Sex-offenders in 2013” was used as analyses data sets. Besides, this study relied on Sherman's Defiance theory(1993) to examine the relationships between the attitude of probation officers and violation of probationers under EM. After reviewing previous studies, related factors were analyzed by assigning key dependent variables such as violation of probation conditions and violation of electronic monitoring requirement. In addition, this study utilized independent variable as supportive attitude of probation officers. Furthermore, as control variables, age, educational background, criminal experience, and period of attachment to electronic devices were used in the model. Logistic regression analysis result demonstrated that EM attachment period and previous criminal history of offenders had a significant impact on increasing the violation of probation conditions. Regression analysis showed that probationer-officer relationship was not statistically significant factors that might decrease the number of violation of condition when other variables were controlled. These results showed that the compassionate attitude of the probation officer was not a significant factor for obtaining better compliance of offenders under EM. Further policy implications will be discussed.

Features of violent crime in places of deprivation of liberty

This article analyzes the problems of violent crime in places of deprivation of liberty. The author investigates the features of its content characteristics. The relevance of the topic is due to the prevalence of psychological phenomena in penitentiary practice, manifested in conditions of concentrated isolation of criminally deformed persons. The paper touches upon the issues of criminal subculture, which has special patterns of manifestation in correctional institutions. At the same time, a common distinguishing feature of the tacit impact of crime is the violent nature of maintaining authority among the prison population. It is noted that deprivation of liberty in itself also has the potential of a negative impact on the conflict of the penitentiary environment caused by derivational psychological processes. The author confirms the hypothesis that in places of deprivation of liberty, the personality characteristics of violent criminals are formed due to past criminal experiences.

Co-offending and Criminal Careers in Organized Crime

The growing research on co-offending over the life course is based on relatively small, general offending samples, followed for a short period, and from a limited set of countries. This study expands current knowledge by examining the relation of co-offending with age, criminal experience, crime type, and crime seriousness in a large sample of Italian serious organized crime offenders with criminal careers spanning between age 14 and late adulthood. The sample includes 160,262 offenses by 10,530 Italian mafia offenders. After preliminary descriptive statistics, random-effects logistic regressions estimate how age, criminal experience, crime type, and seriousness are independently related to the co-offending probability. Co-offending decreases only moderately with both the age and criminal experience of organized crime offenders, while more prolific offenders exhibit a stable co-offending prevalence as their experience increases. Co-offending varies significantly by crime type, and it is more frequent for more serious offenses. In line with previous research, co-offending has a relevant functional component even for organized crime offenders: results suggest it is instrumental to perpetrating specific offense types and more serious offenses. However, results also show that specific social and criminal contexts promote co-offending among older and more experienced offenders.

Features of the special knowledge use in the investigation of murders committed by convicts in prisons

Negative trends in the economy and social relations are slowing down the process of reforming the economic and financial system. The sharp restriction of state control and other negative phenomena that existed in our country have caused a significant increase in crime, especially its organized forms, resulting in a sharp increase in the number of particularly serious crimes against the person. A felony such as murder committed by a convict in prison is no exception.
 These criminal offenses invariably cause a significant public response, because, firstly, a serious criminal offense is committed, such as murder, secondly, it is committed by convicts serving sentences, and thirdly, as a rule, this category of criminal offenses is committed in correctional facilities.
 Convicts are persons with criminal experience who know the peculiarities of law enforcement agencies and have techniques for counteracting the investigation of criminal offenses, so the investigator faces the difficult task of identifying and exposing both the direct perpetrators and organizers (intermediaries) of such murders. That is why it is impossible to search for, record, seize and investigate the criminologically significant information about crimes of this kind necessary for the investigation and the court without the use of various special knowledge.
 In addition, the continuous improvement of technical means and methods significantly expands the range of specialized knowledge, which, in turn, allows you to identify, record and remove traces that were previously unavailable for research. However, the problem is that investigators are often not fully informed about the possibilities of using expertise in the investigation of criminal offenses. It should also be borne in mind that murder of this category is committed in a specific situation, namely in correctional facilities. All the above determined the relevance of the chosen research topic.

«В нашем деле и “мелочи” важны» (о практике работы советского уголовного розыска в 1940–1950-е годы)

This article studies the development of criminal investigation techniques employed by the Soviet police (militia) during the post-war years (from 1945 to the late 1950s). The author demonstrates that the high crime rate in general and the large number of robberies and gang crimes in particular threatened people’s daily life. Thus, it was essential that the Soviet police should implement diverse measures, primarily, improve their criminal investigation techniques. Further, the author underlines that during the post-war years many people who had previously never been associated with crime found themselves involved in criminal activities. The situation was aggravated by the fact that a great number of police officers had only been recently employed and therefore had no criminal investigation experience. It considerably impeded the process of crime detection and prosecution, indicating the necessity to develop new and effective methods of criminal investigation. The paper analysed a wide range of sources, such as departmental publications, operational reviews on grave crimes written by chief police officers, as well as memoires of law enforcement officers. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the Soviet police employed a vast variety of criminal investigation techniques and procedures, such as investigating citizens’ reports containing criminal conduct allegations (including anonymous), working undercover, etc. The study shows that Soviet police officers managed to improve their methods of criminal investigation, increase the number of potential informers and create sites for trapping criminals. The successful efforts of the Soviet police to improve the criminal investigation techniques and procedures contributed to reducing the crime rate in the country in the late 1950s.

Cryptomarkets and the returns to criminal experience

ABSTRACT Criminal capital theory suggests more experienced offenders receive higher returns from crime. Offenders who accrue skills over their criminal career are better able to minimise detection, increase profits, and navigate illegal markets. Yet shifts in the offending landscape to technologically-dependent crimes have led some to suggest that the skills necessary to be successful in conventional crimes no longer apply, meaning ‘traditional’ criminals may be left behind. The recent turn of drug vendors to online markets provides an opportunity to investigate whether ‘street smarts’ translate to success in technologically-dependent crimes. This study surveys 51 drug vendors on online drug markets to compare individuals who began their drug-selling career in physical drug markets with vendors whose onset began on digital platforms. The findings suggest vendors who broker between online and offline drug markets are better positioned to maximize profits. The results inform potential spillover effects from offline drug-selling into online marketplaces.

The Only Punishment

Does empathy and moral choice only require that we better understand things from the perspective of others? What if we could force criminals to get that better understanding? In this work of nature-of-punishment short story fiction, Rat has been sentenced to a government “brainwashing” facility. He regrets nothing, save having been caught. He comes from the mean streets, and sometimes that means doing horrible things to get by. As part of his punishment, the government forces him to live his criminal experiences three times. First, from his own perspective. Next, from the perspective of the person the crime was committed against. And finally, from a meta view that allows him to see how his actions, and the actions of others, fit into the larger repeating cycles, in the city. Rat emerges from the program with a new perspective and is ready to begin assisting the program with cleaning up the city.

О некоторых проблемах исследования религиозного радикализма и терроризма (на примере опыта Казахстана)

The relevance of the publication is due to the increasing manifestations of religious radicalization of the population and the threat of terrorism in the post-Soviet space and, in particular, in the Republic of Kazakhstan. One of the least developed problems is the study of psychological regularities of the emergence and development of the phenomenon of religiosity, the motives for its formation and levels of its manifestation in believers, including the formation of extreme religious views and values in an individual. The aim of the work was to describe theoretical and applied research questions on the problem of the formation of religious radicalism, extremism and terrorism in believers and followers of Islam, as well as on the methodological problems of developing psychodiagnostic tools and technologies of psychological intervention in this area. Results. The characteristics and dynamics of indices of criminal situations with radical religious extremism and terrorism manifestation in the Republic of Kazakhstan is presented. The features of psychoprophylaxis of religious extremism relapse and rehabilitation of people convicted for such crimes were considered. Some examples of such work,organized in Kazakhstan with women and children who were in terrorist activity zones for a long time were described. The necessity of studying the personal features of believers, their level of religiosity, the motivation for extremist views and the radicalisation of the personality, as well as the main targets of psychodiagnostics in order to predict behaviour from the perspective of public safety and to prevent the spread of radical ideology and values in secular society, have been substantiated. Among the main conclusions presented is the understanding of the need to develop fundamentally new approaches in psychodiagnostics of radicalization, extremism and terrorism in order to prognostically diagnose, rehabilitate and resocialize believers who have extreme criminal experiences. is behavioral analysis by means of different techniques, facts and documents with the use of methods of observation and diagnostic interview of a believer seem to be the most productive methods.

Alternative Methods of Dispute Resolution as a Measure to Reduce the Workload on Courts: A Comparative Legal Study (Part 2)

The paper considers alternative methods of dispute resolution as a measure to reduce the workload on the courts. At present, the need to reduce the workload on courts is quite acute in Russia. According to the members of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ), a large workload on courts (and, accordingly, on judges) seriously affects the quality of justice and the timing of the consideration of cases. It should be noted that all judicial systems of the world without exception face this problem, but the statistics of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) shows that over the past few years the burden on courts and judges has significantly decreased in the EU countries.The authors summarize that foreign judicial practice has successfully tested working tools to reduce the burden on courts, which the Russian judicial system may well borrow. However, these tools require gradual development and elaboration given all Russian legal realities. A sharp transition to alternative dispute resolution may negatively affect the quality of dispute resolution in Russia. If the legislator restricts the ability of citizens to consider disputes in courts (for example, by increasing court fees), but at the same time alternative dispute resolution methods will remain at a low level of legal and social development (citizens’ distrust, weak legislative elaboration, etc.), then citizens will completely lose the platform for legal dispute resolution. It is quite possible that we will return to the criminal experience of the economy of the 1990s.

On Development of Methodology of Establishing an Individual Belonging to the Upper Criminal Hierarchy Based on a Pictographic Criminal Writing

The article proves the special role of the linguistic examination of tattoos in the process of proving a person's involvement in the organization and management of criminal groups. A semiotic classification of tattoos used by so-called code-bound criminals is proposed. In the course of expert practice, the author was able to establish that in the criminal world, tattoos represent a logical system of postulates and criminal ideas. Therefore, the main thing for an expert linguist should be knowledge of the subculture of the criminal world: thieves' rules of conduct, argot, proverbs and sayings of the criminal community, prison songs, nicknames, the meaning of criminal symbols. It is important to keep in mind that tattooing is a gradual process and reflects the acquired criminal experience.

Criminal Misconduct: An Objective Need or a Declared Necessity?

The actively defended idea of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the inclusion of an offencse of criminal misconduct in the criminal legislation was reflected in the revised draft federal law submitted to the Parliament on October 13, 2020. The purpose of the study is to determine the key changes in the content of the institutions of criminal misconduct and other measures of a criminal law nature proposed for consolidation in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, to assess the objective need of the reforms initiated by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The methodological basis is a set of methods of scientific knowledge. General scientific (analysis and synthesis, dialectics) and specific scientific research methods (system structural, formal legal) were used. A comparative analysis of draft laws allows us to classify the substantive content of acts constituting a criminal misconduct as key changes and the modification of other measures of a criminal legal nature. The authors critically assess the idea underlying the classification of acts as criminal misconduct. By laying in the criteria for the isolation of acts that are minimal in terms of the degree of danger, not legally significant elements of corpus delicti, but the types and amount of punishments, the lack of criminal experience, the interests of the business community, the developers of the draft law violate the system of law, since the proposed approach excludes the assessment of the public danger of the act based on the significance of the protected by the criminal the law of public relations. The meaning of the differentiation of criminal liability declared by the initiator of the reforms is lost with the proposed duplication of other measures applied both to persons who have committed a criminal misconduct and to those guilty of committing crimes of small or medium gravity, and the proposed conditional nature of other measures levels the idea of liberalizing the criminal law. The paper focuses on the provisions of the project that require revision and additional comprehension.

Alternative Methods of Dispute Resolution as a Measure to Reduce the Workload on Courts: A Comparative Legal Study (Part 1)

The paper considers alternative methods of dispute resolution as a measure to reduce the workload on the courts. At present, the need to reduce the workload on courts is quite acute in Russia. According to the members of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ), a large workload on courts (and, accordingly, on judges) seriously affects the quality of justice and the timing of the consideration of cases. It should be noted that all judicial systems of the world without exception face this problem, but the statistics of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) shows that over the past few years the burden on courts and judges has significantly decreased in the EU countries. The authors summarize that foreign judicial practice has successfully tested working tools to reduce the burden on courts, which the Russian judicial system may well borrow. However, these tools require gradual development and elaboration given all Russian legal realities. A sharp transition to alternative dispute resolution may negatively affect the quality of dispute resolution in Russia. If the legislator restricts the ability of citizens to consider disputes in courts (for example, by increasing court fees), but at the same time alternative dispute resolution methods will remain at a low level of legal and social development (citizens’ distrust, weak legislative elaboration, etc.), then citizens will completely lose the platform for legal dispute resolution. It is quite possible that we will return to the criminal experience of the economy of the 1990s.

Characteristic of a Female Recidivist: Qualitative Empirical Analysis (View from Ukraine).

The article provides the characteristic of a female recidivist through a qualitative empirical analysis of socio-demographic, criminal-legal, and criminal-executive features of convicted women serving their sentences in the Chernihiv Correctional Institution No. 44 by conducting an anonymous survey of 123 female recidivists. The characteristic features inherent to female recidivists have been identified and generalized and, on this basis, a typical characteristic of such persons has been worked out based on the analysis of results of the survey of convicted women. This category is mostly represented by middle-aged people from 36 to 48 years. This person has a secondary or secondary special, vocational education, is unmarried, without stable socially useful ties, and the existing family ties have deteriorated after being sentenced to imprisonment, and by occupation she has a predominantly working specialty. She is serving a sentence of imprisonment for a term mainly from 2 to 5 years for middle grave crimes, has 3 to 4 convictions, which indicates her extensive criminal experience.

Experiências de fronteira: as interfaces entre ser do crime e ser evangélico/a

In this article, through the trajectories of two interlocutors, I essay some reflections about the experiences of mobilizing a religious grammar in the crime, and about the experiences of religious conversion and disengagement from criminal networks through some acts in churches and congregations, specifically in the context of the urban margins of Alagoas. The objective is to contribute to the comprehension of the evangelical religious experiences in the Northeast of the country. I propose the argument that the religious experiences and the criminal experiences tense up, interpenetrate and, consequently, imply in the way in which are enunciated the identifications: I am a criminal and I am evangelical, since this religiosity seems to work as moral mirror to the postures, performances and grammars.

CURRENT STATE AND PERSPECTIVES OF EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE MINORS CONDEMNED IN THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE FSIN OF RUSSIA

The article presents the current state of educational work with juvenile convicts in educational colonies of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. The author determines that the recidivism of youth and adolescents in the current period remains one of the acute problems in the Russian Federation. So, juvenile delinquency is a powerful source of self-determination of crime as such. Today, juvenile delinquency produces crime of young people (from 14 to 17 years old), translates negative criminal experiences into the future, which, according to the laws of social education, again “returns” to tomorrow's teenagers as the “social heritage” of previous generations. And also do not forget that juvenile delinquents are the social base of organized and recidivism in modern Russia. It can also be noted that by committing repeated criminal offenses the offender is firmly convinced of his impunity. Relapse of crimes committed by juveniles sentenced to suspended sentences (or corrective labor), or to insignificant real terms of imprisonment, emphasizes the ineffectiveness of the sentence, which is reflected in the increase in the number of repeated criminal offenses committed by minors. Therefore, it is very real that, due to the weakness and inefficiency of penitentiary resocialization in prisons, the number of crimes committed by convicts, but in a more perverse form, may increase in a few years (not excluded in the composition of an organized criminal group). And also juvenile delinquency promotes the spread of a criminal way of thinking and a way of behavior in a “healthy” teenage environment, leading to its criminal infection. So, Taoist wisdom says - ... be afraid of your thoughts, for they are the beginning of your actions - Lao Tzu (VI – V centuries BC). Teenage crime causes harm to the personal development of the juvenile offender himself, thereby contributing to the continuation of the criminal activity of the minor. Based on the foregoing, juvenile delinquency should be considered as one of the most serious and significant socio-legal problems of modern Russian society. In the article, the author proposes a “model” of the development of penitentiary institutions, includes a description of the goals and objectives of the Educational Center of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, its functional and organizational structure, conditions for serving sentences and detention of juvenile convicts. The model of the educational center of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for juvenile convicts is presented.

Кримінологічні особливості запобігання рецидиву злочинів неповнолітніх

У статті з’ясовано місце, роль і значення запобігання рецидиву злочинів у системі запобігання злочинності неповнолітніх. Встановлено, що реалізація запобігання рецидиву неповнолітніх ускладнена тим, що об’єктом запобігання є категорія дітей, які вже мають певний кримінальний досвід. Мета виправлення неповнолітнього розглядається як процес відновлення позитивного особистісного потенціалу засудженого неповнолітнього та закріплення його здатності протистояти можливим кримінальним загрозам.