Open AccessHISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND LEGAL ANALYSIS OF SURVEILLANCE IN CRIME PREVENTION
Author(s) -
Nataliia Voitovych
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
intermarum: ìstorìâ, polìtika, kulʹtura
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2518-7708
pISSN - 2518-7694
DOI - 10.35433/history.112011
Subject(s) - covert , objectivity (philosophy) , politics , novelty , comparative historical research , political science , law , historical method , content analysis , democracy , sociology , criminology , social science , epistemology , history , psychology , social psychology , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology
The aim of the research is to study the historical preconditions and legal regulation of surveillance in combating crime in the XIX century. At the same time, the author's goal is to compare peculiarities of the instruments of system fight against crime (the method of operational search actions, hereinafter - OSA) and covert investigative activities in countries with different forms of government and diverse political systems.The methodology of the research is: adherence to the principles of objectivity, scientificity and historicism contributed to consistent disclosure of preconditions, content and principles of surveillance as a measure and a method of OSA and covert investigative activities in combating and preventing crime actions. Mutual enrichment with historical and legal methods provided systemity of the research. Historical study of surveillance in combination with the study of regulatory legal acts created new opportunities for interdisciplinary research. The application of general scientific methods, namely systematization, generalization, problem-chronological, comparative-historical, historical-legal methods allowed to trace the influence of the legal component on the history of introduction and development of surveillance in the "long" XIX century and peculiarities of its usage in the conditions of the newly formed states and political systems in the interwar period.The scientific novelty lies in a detailed historical and legal analysis of the content of regulatory legal acts concerning legal grounds for surveillance, a comprehensive study of its content, gaps and peculiarities of usage in non-democratic political regimes.Conclusions. The article provides historical analysis of evolution and usage of surveillance, which has experienced several stages connected with improving the performance of security functions, in preventing crimes. The attention is focused on the most characteristic features of implementing surveillance as a universal measure of obtaining information and distributing tasks between the states' law enforcement agencies and a means of combating representatives of political forces and structures constituting a real and hypothetical threat to the state / regime. The similarity of performing functions by law enforcement agencies (and the role of surveillance) in the conditions of different state formations, despite fundamental differences in the forms of government and the nature of political systems, is proved.