Comprehensive Study Notes on Criminalistics

Comprehensive Definition and Subject Matter of Criminalistics

Criminalistics is a discipline that systematically researches scientific methods and rules of experience in the immediate prevention, detection, and clarification of the occurrences of criminal acts and the establishment of their perpetrators. It is directed toward gnoseological-informational contents, possibilities, ways, and means of acquiring knowledge about facts that are the subject of investigation, as defined by Geerds in 1969. The field also involves understanding the structure of criminal acts, developing methodology and methodical procedures for their discovery and clarification, preventing their occurrence, and finding appropriate scientific methods through the systematic collection and processing of rules of experience, according to Gross and Geerds in 1978. Thus, criminalistics can be understood as a teaching or a systematic whole of knowledge regarding methods and means of discovering, gathering knowledge, and preventing the occurrences of criminal acts, as well as the discovery and hunt for their perpetrators—in short, the entire actual procedure of clarifying the occurrence of a criminal act, as described by Kube et al. in 1994.

Criminalistics considers the occurrence of a criminal act as its subject of research, whereas criminal law focuses on legal regulations concerning the criminal act. Criminal law approaches the criminal act from the standpoint of legal science, while criminalistics considers factual structures. Furthermore, criminalistics examines the investigation procedure as a real structure, in contrast to criminal procedural law, which manages the legal regulations that govern criminal proceedings. This distinction is sufficient to separate criminalistics as a scientific discipline from the related field of criminal law science, as noted by Geerds in 1987.

Information Sources and the Object of Criminalistics

The fundamental category in determining the subject of criminalistics is information related to a criminal act, often referred to as a criminalistic message, information, or data. According to Vodinelić in 1994, this fundamental determinant differs from the basic concepts in criminal material or procedural law, as well as in criminology and criminal policy. Sources of information are categorized into persons, physical objects, documents or papers, and media messages. The system of criminalistics must adapt to this information structure. In American literature, specifically according to Osterburg and Ward in 2000, "case attrition" is highlighted as a condition for criminalistic intervention.

The Nine Golden Questions of Criminalistics

The fundamental methodological version of criminalistics involves a complex system of assumptions structured according to certain basic or main questions. These questions originated with the philosopher Joachim Georg Daries, who formulated the first six. Vodinelić expanded this classification by adding two more—technically totaling nine questions for comprehensive investigation. The questions are: Who? ( $Quis$ ), What? ( $Quid$ ), Where? ( $Ubi$ ), With what help/means? ( $Quibus \, auxiliis$ ), Why? ( $Cur$ ), How? ( $Quomodo$ ), When? ( $Quando$ ), With what intention? ( $Cum \, quo \, animo$ ), and With whom? ( $Cum \, quo$ ).

Structural Divisions: Dichotomy and Trichotomy

Since the period when criminalistics first formed as a scientific discipline, the prevailing view has been a dichotomous structure of its scientific material. This traditional and widely accepted division posits that the field consists of two thematic entities or components. However, the accelerated modern development of the discipline and the process of specialization led to a need for a systematic separation of a third area: criminalistic methodics. Although some argue that methodics subjectively belongs to criminalistic tactics, it requires a specific approach. Consequently, the content of criminalistic science is most transparently organized as a trichotomy consisting of tactics, technique, and methodics.

Criminalistic Technique, Tactics, and Methodics

Criminalistic technique deals with the discovery, study, adaptation, and improvement of the most suitable scientific-technical methods and means for combating crime from the fields of natural and technical sciences. Its goal is the discovery, securing, fixation, and interpretation of traces and objects related to a specific criminal act for discovery-evidentiary purposes. As independent scientific development occurs, the concept of criminalistic technique is defined more comprehensively and precisely than in traditional views.

Criminalistic tactics is a branch or subsystem of criminalistic science that investigates the forms and ways criminal acts are committed, the motives of perpetrators, and their goals—known as criminal or delinquent tactics and technique. It also covers the knowledge, skills, customs, habits, worldviews, lifestyles, and psychology of perpetrators, which is referred to as criminalistic phenomenology. Tactics is further divided into general tactics, which focuses on investigative actions, and special tactics, which considers the specificities of investigative actions relative to particular criminal acts or groups of acts.

Criminalistic methodics, also known as special tactics, is a highly branched and dynamic area that developed through specialization and the adaptation of tactical rules to the specific characteristics of certain types or groups of criminal acts. It studies and researches the specificities of discovering, investigating, and preventing a certain kind, type, or group of criminal acts. The number of criminalistic methodics depends entirely on the number of existing groupings of criminal acts.

Criminalistic Phenomenology

Criminalistic phenomenology is a subsystem of criminalistic tactics within which specific elements are collected, studied, and systematized. These include the manifestations of criminal acts, known as criminal morphology; the characteristics of the way specific criminal acts are realized, known as the technique of crime or delinquent tactics and technique; the lifestyle and behavior of delinquents and their specific life forms (perpertrator traits), known as criminography; and the manifestations of criminal acts in relation to the method of commission. The primary task of criminalistic phenomenology is the investigation of all components and concrete manifestations of criminal acts.

The Concept and Degrees of Suspicion

Suspicion in the context of criminal proceedings can relate to various circumstances, including the conditions for applying measures of procedural coercion. In relation to the central subject—the commission of a criminal act—suspicion is viewed as a prerequisite or an assumption about the act. This represents the minimum criminalistic standard required for any investigation. Suspicion in this sense corresponds to the concept of probability; it must be based on actual circumstances rather than mere guesswork. The necessary elements for the criminalistic concept of suspicion include physical circumstances indicating the existence of a crime, a hypothesis or thesis about the crime, and the degree of probability of that hypothesis.

Suspicion can be measured or categorized by degrees based on the probability of the content to which it refers. Typical designations include: grounds for suspicion, grounded suspicion, justified suspicion, remote suspicion, close suspicion, light suspicion, heavy suspicion, urgent suspicion, unlikely suspicion, probable suspicion, highly probable suspicion, probability bordering on certainty, initial grounded suspicion, and sufficient suspicion.

Goals of Criminalistic Investigation

According to Lyman in 2011, the fundamental goals of a criminalistic investigation are more complex than generally imagined due to the changing nature of criminal activities. These goals include: (a) discovering the criminal act; (b) locating and identifying suspects for the criminal act; (c) locating, documenting, and preserving evidence of criminal acts; (d) arresting suspects for criminal acts; (e) returning stolen property to legitimate owners; and (f) preparing solid criminal cases for prosecution.

Identification of Persons and Objects

Objects of identification are divided into persons and things. Personal identification includes the recognition of individuals via photographs, visual reconstruction using aids, direct recognition, or recognition of a dead body. Further methods include anthropometric descriptions (Bertillonage), physical descriptions, patterns of papillary lines (fingerprints), and identification based on lip prints, nail marks, odontological (dental) data, morphological foot characteristics, handwriting, voice, scent, and biological traces.

Real identification (identification of things) involves recognizing objects used to commit a criminal act or intended for that purpose ( $instrumenta \, sceleris$ ), objects created by a criminal act ( $producta \, sceleris$ ), and objects acquired directly or indirectly through a criminal act, as well as objects upon which traces of a criminal act can be found.

Principles of Identification

There are three primary principles of identification. The first principle requires that a specific set of identification characteristics cannot be found in any other object of identification. The second principle states that identification characteristics must achieve a certain degree of correspondence between the sample and the target. The third principle specifies that the concrete process of identification is carried out according to a specific methodology depending on the nature and type of identification.

Interdisciplinary Relationships

Criminalistics and criminology share a close bond as both study crime and the delinquent, though from different angles. Criminalistics focuses on the discovery of acts and perpetrators, while criminology takes a broader sociological perspective, researching the causes, conditions, and manifestations of criminal behavior.

Similarly, criminalistics and forensic medicine complement each other, particularly in cases involving blood and sexual offenses. Forensic medicine is a scientific discipline that systematically investigates medical occurrences for use in legal regulations. Their connection has fostered new disciplines like medical criminalistics, as well as advancements in trace study (traseology) and identification.

Criminalistics also distinguishes itself from social pathology and criminal pedagogy by focusing directly on the immediate measures of investigating the manifestations of criminal acts. Additionally, it relies on the psychology of criminal proceedings, a subset of judicial psychology used to explain, predict, and influence the behavior of participants in the proceedings.

Heuristic and Syllogistic Criminalistics

Criminalistic thinking and action are divided into heuristic and syllogistic forms. Heuristic criminalistics views the criminal act as a real occurrence from the moment of initial suspicion. It involves the thoughtful, planned, and systematic collection of data through investigation, testing, creating assumptions, reasoning, and comparing. Its central category is the "data," which in a procedural sense is an indication characterized by freedom of action and inventiveness. It is concerned with the discovery and prevention of the act and the perpetrator.

Syllogistic criminalistics approaches the criminal act as both a real occurrence and as the subject of criminal proceedings and law. It starts with the probability that a specific person committed a specific act and considers the performance of procedural actions, particularly the execution of individual evidence. Its central category is "evidence." It focuses on the mechanisms of the origin, discovery, and formation of evidentiary information and its conversion into legal proof, as well as the purposeful conduct of the criminal proceeding.

Historical Development and Evidence Systems

The history of criminalistic practice can be categorized into four phases based on the evolution of evidence systems. The first is the Ethnic phase, where evidence was evaluated based on personal and experiential knowledge. The second is the Religious or Mystical phase, marked by evidentiary tests through dangerous ordeals or "God's judgments." The third phase arose as a reaction, characterized by a completely formal and legal evaluation of evidence. The fourth and current phase is the phase of Internal Conviction ( $intime \, conviction$ ), where judges evaluate evidence freely based on their own assessment.

Foundational Principles of Criminalistic Activity

The principle of lawfulness requires every action to be performed in a legally prescribed manner by authorized subjects. Illegal conduct renders evidence void and subjects the actor to criminal responsibility. The principle of objectivity demands conscientiousness, responsibility, and criticality, excluding bias, irrationality, and external interference. The principle of discretion and secrecy involves the duty to protect official secrets to ensure operational success and prevent the endangerment of investigations.

The principle of methodicity emphasizes the necessity of organizing and planning criminalistic activities. Actions must be studied and planned before being undertaken to remove potential deficiencies. The principle of operability and speed involves coordination and adaptation to real conditions to ensure system efficiency. The principle of proportionality dictates that criminalistic interventions must be strictly limited to the needs of the proceeding, selecting actions that achieve goals with the least interference with individual rights and freedoms. Finally, the principle of humanity emphasizes respect for human rights and protection of the innocent from unfounded suspicion.

Legal and Deontological Frameworks

Legal frameworks consist of all legal rules that directly or indirectly determine criminalistic activity, including the protection of physical integrity, freedom, private rights, and property. Deontological frameworks arise partially from legal rules but go deeper into ethical and moral standards. Since it is impossible to prescribe every detail of a criminalist's conduct, general guiding principles and civilization-based ethical standards govern the limits of investigation.

Inductive and Deductive Methods

Inductive methods involve the systematic application of inductive conclusions to discover truth. Within this, auxiliary methods include: (a) Observation, which is a planned and objective observation of a subject; (b) Experiment, which involves the intentional provocation of phenomena to study laws under varying conditions; (c) Counting, used to determine the number of members in a set or class; and (d) Measurement, used with measuring tools to find the numerical physical value of properties. Deductive methods involve the systematic application of deductive conclusions to prove truth, particularly during the creation of deductive versions.

Mill's Inductive Causal Methods

Five specific methods characterize the inductive search for causality:

The Method of Agreement ( $Metoda \, slaganja$ ): If cases of a phenomenon share only one common circumstance, that circumstance is the cause or effect.
The Method of Difference ( $Metoda \, razlike$ ): If a case where a phenomenon occurs and a case where it does not occur share every circumstance except one, that one circumstance is the cause or part of the cause.
Combined Method of Agreement and Difference: If cases where a phenomenon occurs share one circumstance, and cases where it does not occur share nothing except the absence of that circumstance, that circumstance is the cause or effect.
Method of Residues ( $Metoda \, ostatka$ ): Subtracting known effects of certain antecedents from a complex phenomenon leaves the remainder as the effect of the remaining antecedents.
Method of Concomitant Variations ( $Metoda \, popratnih \, promjena$ ): If a phenomenon varies whenever another phenomenon varies specifically, they are causally connected.

Hypotheses and Versions

In criminalistics, hypotheses are referred to as versions. A version is one of multiple hypotheses explaining the origin, properties, relationships, and circumstances of a criminal act, perpetrator, or victim. They aim to provide a probable explanation based on gathered knowledge and intuition. The plurality of versions is essential in criminal proceedings. Versions are categorized logically into preliminary, working, auxiliary, main, secondary, basic, and supplementary. By time, they are retrospective, prognostic, successive, or simultaneous. By relationship, they are matching, exclusive, or neutral.

Typical versions are general model-structured versions regarding the essence of the crime, the action/consequence, the subjective side (guilt, motive), the behavior of the victim, and traces at the scene. Verification of versions involves checking their starting points by deriving and testing consequences using all available evidence, often through elimination or refutation.

Indices: Indicators and Evidence

Indices are the basis for setting versions in heuristic criminalistics. In a procedural sense, an index is a fact established to prove another fact, serving as indirect logical proof. In criminalistics, indices include all evidentiary facts plus other circumstances like polygrams or operative notes on character. They are research-significant circumstances.

Indices are classified by scope (General vs. Special), connection (Perpetrator, Act, or Victim), time (Before, During, or After the act), and evidentiary strength (Obvious, Close, or Remote). Methods for working with indices include elimination, diffusion, and accumulation. Errors in this work include lack of knowledge about index importance, failure to recognize circumstances as indices, slow verification, or missing essential situational characteristics.

Logical Elements and Types of Evidence

Proof in logic is a form used to derive the truth of a judgment. Proof in a broader sense ( $probatio$ and $refutatio$ ) includes both confirming and refuting a judgment. Fundamental elements of proof include the thesis ( $thesis \, probandi$ ), the arguments ( $argumenta \, probandi$ ), the method ( $modus \, probandi$ ), the instruments ( $instrumenta \, probandi$ ), and the strength or persuasiveness of the proof ( $nervus \, probandi$ ).

Evidence is categorized into direct and indirect (where the truth is established by the falsity of its contradictory), empirical and non-empirical, and deductive or inductive based on the logical connection. It can also be progressive, regressive, complete, or incomplete. Logical errors in proof include insufficient evidence ( $probatio \, minus \, probans$ ), excessive evidence ( $probatio \, plus \, probans$ ), transition to another genus ( $metabasis$ ), absence of principle ( $petitio \, principi$ ), circular reasoning, false foundations ( $pseudoproton$ ), and appeals against the person ( $argumentum \, ad \, hominem$ ).

Facts and Factual Status

Facts are viewed as concrete phenomena of criminal acts that serve for legal subsumption. They are divided into external (objective occurrences) and internal (psychological processes in the perpetrator), as well as positive and negative. In criminal proceedings, rules about facts concern their concept, division, and means of establishment. Facts are established as true when their existence becomes certain according to the standards of the proceedure. Facts can be legally relevant (decisive), connected (indices), or auxiliary (used to check other evidence). The goal of the procedure is the correct establishment of the factual status.

Psychology of Statements and Testimony

The psychology of the statement researchers the Broad and Narrow concepts of "iskaz" (statement). The broad concept covers all statements made by participants; the narrow concept focuses on the statement as a means of evidence. The narrow types include the statement of the defendant (confession, denial, naming accomplices), the witness (truthful or subjective/objective false), the expert witness, and statements during confrontation.

The creation of a statement involves four psychological stages: (a) perception (observation, understanding), (b) memory (immediate and mediated), (c) thinking, and (d) reproduction/communication. Individual differences in statements arise from the provider's mental state, sex, age, education, and situational circumstances. Reliability is determined by the accuracy of observation and recall; errors often stem from memory changes, such as simplification, rationalization, or substituting the unknown with the known. Errors in communication include imprecise descriptions or the filling of memory gaps with exaggerations.

Strategic and Tactical Planning

Planning is the basic function of management involving decisions on what, when, how, and by whom an action will be performed. In criminalistics, strategic planning involves programming long-term goals, while tactical planning involves the planning of actual work operations to achieve validity, speed, and economy. Work planning includes phases: goal determination, data collection, operation analysis, activity scheduling, and sequence determination. Implementation is achieved through operative models or the elaboration of concrete plans.

Trace Science: Traseology

A trace is any material change resulting from a criminal act that serves as an information carrier. Traseology is the study of these material traces. Traces can be categorized by shape into impressions (surface-level) and indentations (penetrating the structure). They are further classified into macro-traces (visible), micro-traces (requiring aids), and sub-micro-traces (requiring dissolution to detect).

Relational micro-traces are analyzed through the interactions between four objects: perpetrator, victim, means, and place. Identification traces are those reflecting the external structure of an object suitable for identification. Work with traces follows four phases: discovery, securing (both physical and procedural), fixation, and interpretation. Intentional interference may lead to "fingered" or simulated traces designed to mislead investigators.

Specialized Technical Methods

Dactyloscopy is the method of establishing identity through the papillary lines on fingers, palms, and soles. It is divided into registration (general ten-print) and investigative (mono-dactyloscopic) methods. Biology contributes modern DNA and blood group identification. Physics provides tools like electron microscopes, lasers, and ultraviolet/infrared rays for spectro-photography. Chemistry provides analytical methods such as paper, thin-layer, and gas chromatography, as well as toxicology and document examination methods. These natural sciences are essential for finding and fixing traces for discovery-evidentiary purposes.