The Method of Action (Modus Operandi) in Property Theft: Topical Issues of Judicial Interpretation and Doctrinal Legal Thinking

The paper examines the methodological problems of understanding the method of committing theft in the doctrine, law enforcement practie and modern science of criminal law. The author analyzes such objective signs of theft as seizure, confiscation, circulation, and their relationship with other signs of theft. The author proves that the modern description of objective signs of the theft does not correspond to the realities of the theft as a tort infringing on property and obligations. The situations of qualification of actions related to the replacement of the owner (owner of the property) and causing damage to the owner or another owner are considered in detail, regardless of the fact of direct seizure or circulation of the stolen property (taking possession of it). It is stated that in order to avoid contradictions and fictions, law enforcement practice is forced to interpret “seizure of someone else’s property” too broadly and equate this feature with the fact of legal replacement of the owner (owner) of the property. The paper demonstrates the inconsistency of this situation and the fictitiousness of the rules for qualifying property crimes. The author concludes that it is necessary to correct the legislative description of the method of action in case of theft competing it with elements that would most fully cover all kinds of situations and would be universal. This takes place because today it is impossible to choose and fix a method of theft that would characterize a single criminal encroachment on bodily and non-corporeal material goods and would reflect theft as an act causing damage to the owner. Due to the fact that the mechanism of criminal encroachments on property and obligations is not the same type and has its own specifics, the reflection of the mode of action in property crimes should be differentiated.

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