OPERATIONAL-SEARCH AND PROCEDURAL PRINCIPLES FOR SPECIAL CRIMINOLOGICAL PREVENTION OF CRIMINAL OFFENSES COMMITTED BY CONVICTS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

The article examines the operational-search and procedural principles for special criminological prevention of criminal offenses committed by convicts in penal institutions. It is substantiated that, within the system of preventive influence on penitentiary criminality, measures of a special criminological nature are the most effective and functionally oriented, as they are aimed at directly influencing the specific criminogenic processes of the penitentiary environment and neutralizing the factors that determine the criminally unlawful behavior of convicts. It is proved that a special place in this system belongs to operational-search activity, which ensures the timely detection, recording, suppression, and prevention of criminal offenses within penal institutions, and also makes it possible to obtain operationally significant information on the preparation of unlawful encroachments, the functioning of criminal subculture, channels for the delivery of prohibited items, and the destructive influence of informal groups. The regulatory foundations for the activity of operational units within the system of the State Criminal and Executive Service of Ukraine are analyzed, and it is argued that these units actually act as key sectoral subjects for the direct identification of criminogenic risks in places of deprivation of liberty. The problem of the limited procedural capabilities of operational units of penal institutions in criminal proceedings is separately examined, and the expediency of improving the provisions of Article 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine is substantiated. It is concluded that the combination of operationalsearch and procedural mechanisms with appropriate guarantees of prosecutorial and judicial control creates the preconditions for increasing the effectiveness of special criminological prevention of penitentiary criminality.