Investigative Actions in the context of Prevention and Control over Violent Crimes Committed by Internal Affairs Bodies Officials: Court Practice

In the context of this study, ‘violent crimes committed by officials’ denotes the unlawful use of violence when law enforcement officials exercise their powers. From the criminal law standpoint, certain types of crimes are included here: abuse of power with the use of violence, torture, including negligently caused death of the victim or causing serious harm to their health (Part 3-5 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); coercion to testify by violence, bullying or torture, including negligently caused death of the victim or causing serious harm to their health (Part 2-4 of Article 302 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Methods: analysis, formal legal, comparative legal. The relevance of the topic is can be seen it that the role of law enforcement agencies is to also protect society from the criminal behavior of officials of such bodies, who, using violence during the commission of the crimes in question, themselves encroach on the rights and freedoms of the individual, overstep the law and universal norms of morality. The established practice and scientific research prove that all the facts of non-reaction to illegal acts of a violent nature on the part of law enforcement officials lead to impunity, contribute to the formation of illegal methods of their activities using physical force. Based on law enforcement practice, investigative actions are carried out directly during the investigation of violent crimes committed by officials. Attention is drawn to the fact that the initial stage of the investigation of violent crimes committed by public officials is characterized by the production of such investigative actions as: inspection of the scene, inspection of official documents, examination, interrogations of victims, witnesses, confrontations, presentation for identification. Based on the above, in law enforcement practice, the importance for preventive work of such investigative actions as inspection of the scene of the incident, inspection of documents, investigative experiment, interrogations of witnesses in other categories of criminal cases is often underestimated. Results: using the example of an inspection of the scene of the incident, an investigative experiment, interrogation of the accused, victims and witnesses, the need for these investigative actions is determined directly in the context of preventing the commission of official violent crimes.

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