Breaks in cause-and-effect relationships in forensic science: stigmatization and ideologization as ways to eliminate them

The subject of the study is the essence of the philosophical category of causality in legal theory: the connection between the "cause" – socially dangerous acts and the "consequence" – socially dangerous outcomes in criminal law and forensic science. The article identifies situations related to gaps (lacunae) in causal relationships that exist during criminal investigations, i.e., the absence or violation of logical connections between cause and effect, which significantly complicates the investigation of the case. The legal nature of such gaps is associated with the lack of necessary objective information used for crime investigations. Causal gaps become particularly critical when the insufficiency of the evidence base prompts law enforcement agencies to resort to unlawful methods to fill the gaps, such as using subjective perceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes ("stigmas") regarding suspects, not based on objective facts, but on assumptions based on ideological, socio-cultural, religious, national-ethnic, and other stereotypes that have formed in a particular human society. The methodological basis of the research consists of methods such as comparative historical analysis, analysis and synthesis of scientific information, institutional methods, dialectical-materialistic methods, and others. The novelty of the material in the article lies in the study of the essence of the philosophical category of causality in legal theory: the connection between the "cause" – socially dangerous acts and the "consequence" – socially dangerous outcomes in criminal law and forensic science. During the research, it was found that there are many historical examples in forensic science related to filling gaps in crime investigations not based on objective facts but using social stigmatization, i.e., an artificial or formal set of evidence aimed at holding stigmatized individuals legally accountable. As a rule, law enforcement officers who carried out such actions were already aware that they were accusing innocent individuals of crimes. The motivation for such actions is varied: personal negative attitudes toward stigmatized individuals (former criminals, drug addicts, migrants, etc.); falsification of evidence regarding the commission of crimes against these individuals to improve performance metrics and, prospectively, lead to promotion, and so forth.