Methodological principles of criminalistics characterization of theft of cultural values from religious buildings

The purpose of this article is a scientific analysis of the methodological foundations of the criminalistics characterization of thefts of cultural values from religious buildings. It is shown that the criminalistics characteristics of theft of cultural values from religious buildings is a group (special) characteristic. It, in addition to the forensic signs of theft, must contain special signs relating to the object of the direct attempt - cultural values, as well as their location at the time of the theft - a religious building. It was concluded that the criminalistics characteristics of theft of cultural values from religious buildings can be presented in the form of descriptions, tables, diagrams, graphs, computer programs, typologies, etc. Such a characteristic should be based on probabilistic-statistical and correlational relationships between its elements. In the author’s opinion, for the investigation of thefts of cultural values from places of worship, the most productive presentation will be the presentation of criminalistics characteristics in the form of a description, typology and analysis of the phases of criminal activity, which will make it possible to most fully describe and present the most essential features of the elements of the criminalistic characteristics of thefts of cultural values from places of worship. It is shown that the functions of criminalistics characterization of criminal offenses are more multifaceted than the simple focus on putting forward versions of a criminal offense committed in conditions of non-obviousness. According to the author, critics of the «impracticality» of forensic characterization of criminal offenses need to look at the functions that such characterization performs in criminalistics in general and forensic methodology, in particular. Such functions have already been highlighted, they are: applied (typical signs of elements and connections between them can be used during the disclosure and investigation of criminal offenses); cognitive (information about the signs of a criminal offense helps the subject of its knowledge - employees of the operational unit, the investigator to learn about the object, that is, the criminal offense); substitution (forensic characteristics can be considered as an information model that replaces the «original», helping to know it); informative (criminalistics characteristics not only reflect the original information about the object of knowledge, but also help to obtain new information about it); prognostic (information contained in criminalistics characteristics helps to make predictions about a possible series of crimes, about the circumstances that may accompany them, etc.); organizational and methodical (criminalistics characteristics guide the investigator to choose the most appropriate means of investigating a crime, to the optimal organization of such an investigation).