Criminalistic characteristic of crimes as systematic reflection of criminal activity mechanism: results of scientific debates

Genesis and elaboration of the category “criminalistic characteristic of crimes” pass some stages which reflect introduction of this notion into the scientific form: active elaboration of the concept of criminalistic characteristic of a crime, crisis of this study, postcrisis period. However, the overstated significance of this characteristic given by some authors along with a range of theoretical and methodological errors contributed to the elaboration of this scientific notion in an extensive way, which includes compilation of knowledge from law-related fields (in particular, criminal law and criminology, despite the fact that the content of criminalistic, criminal and criminological aspects do not coincide in some features). The result of this action is a proposal to replace the criminalistic characteristic of a crime by a number of circumstances which should be proven in the structure of particular criminalistic methods. This replacement is not correct because of different meanings of these notions. There are some critical remarks over the intention to place a range of circumstances which should be proven (established) in the structure of particular criminalistic methods, whereas it does not consider dialectical rules which are the basis of perception of the logical nature of a crime. It is inappropriate to replace the notion “criminalistic characteristic of a crime” with such notions as “mechanism of a crime”, “informational (criminalistic) form of a crime” and so on. It is necessary not to replace the notions but to use their scientific potential in a more productive way. In order to prevent further scientific depreciation of the notion “criminalistic characteristics of a crime” it is essential to take the already existing approach as the scientific basis which consists in revealing of all its elements “in the aspects of given traces”. The notion “traces” should be interpreted in its broad meaning as any changes related to the act of criminal activity. Consequently, every element of the criminalistic characteristic of a crime should be revealed in the aggregate of features, facts, particularities significant for establishment of all circumstances of a crime.

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