Department of Criminalistics

Head of the Department: Aleksandr Alekseevich Belyakov
Doctor of Juridical Sciences
Address: 620034, Ekaterinburg, 54 Kolmogorova St., office 208
Telephone: 8(343) 367-40-95
E-mail: krim@usla.ru

History of the Department of Criminalistics

The development of legal scientific disciplines naturally led to the separation from the science of the criminal process of an independent course - criminalistics. This, undoubtedly, progressive trend has led to the selection of criminalistics as an independent academic discipline. This was facilitated by a significant increase in the technical equipment of investigative and operational search divisions of law enforcement agencies, as well as the need to expand and improve their tactical and methodological arsenals.

On September 5, 1957, the Department of Criminalistics was separated from the Department of criminal procedure of the SLI, which was headed by the Candidate of Juridical Sciences, Associate Professor David Yakovlevich Mirsky.

In 1963, the head of the department was Candidate of Juridical Sciences, Associate Professor Mikhail Artemyevich Efimov, later Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Department of Criminal Law and Procedure of the Gorky Higher School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

From 1966 to 1996, firstly, the head of the department was Candidate of Juridical Sciences, Associate Professor, and then Doctor of Juridical Sciences, Professor, honored lawyer of the Russian Federation Ivan Fedorovich Gerasimov.

The faculty of the Department under the leadership of I. F. Gerasimov has achieved serious success in research activities.

From 1996 to February 2009, the Department of Criminalistics was headed by Doctor of Law, Professor, honored lawyer of the Russian Federation V. N. Karagodin.

From 2009 to the present, the department is headed by Doctor of Law, Professor, Honorary Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation A.A. Belyakov.

One of the main distinguishing features of the Department of Criminalistics consists in close connection with the practical activities of law enforcement agencies, mainly with the work of the investigative units of the Investigative Committee of Russia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The close interaction and collaboration of theory and practice is reflected in the fruitful development of many topical issues of active crime prevention.

For a long period of time, the Department of Criminalistics of USLU (SLI-USLA) has been deservedly recognized as one of the leading centers of forensic science in Russia. The collective of the scientific school of the Department of Criminalistics, along with the problems of crime detection, was one of the first in the country to conduct in-depth research and lay the scientific foundations of the doctrine of criminalistics characteristics of crimes and investigative situations. Leonid Yakovlevich Drapkin made a huge contribution to the development of this topic. These areas remain relevant today.

The primary tasks of the Department are further technical equipment of the educational process, including its computerization, two-way close communication with practical bodies, improvement of pedagogical skills and scientific qualifications of teachers, training of highly qualified specialists.

Scientific school of the Department of Criminalistics

The scientific school of the Department of criminalistics has a rich history and dates back to 1934.

Students who studied at the judicial-prosecutorial-investigative Department received forensic knowledge at the Department of criminal procedure. The only teacher of criminalistics at that time was associate Professor T. S. Moshkovsky, who taught techniques and tactics of crime investigation (this was the name of criminalistics as a discipline at that time).

The next important stage of preparation for the creation of a scientific direction in criminalistics was in 1937. This year, the Institute lost many teachers due to repression, but criminalistics (now as a discipline of the Department of criminal law and procedure) continued to be taught under the guidance of A.V. Krysin. He was also a leading employee of the Sverdlovsk Criminal Investigation Department, having a colossal teaching experience of 14 years for that time.

In 1938, A.V. Krysin was replaced as a full-time criminalistics teacher by M. M. Lubavsky, who had 8 years of teaching experience and served as a scientific and technical expert in the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs criminal investigation department by that time. He was actively engaged in scientific activities and was one of the leading employees of the Institute according to this indicator. He worked on issues of forensic examination, investigation of pickpocketing, embezzlement, and theft in savings banks. He developed a forensic methodology for examining pocket and briefcase cuts. However, the main merit of M. M. Lubavsky was the creation of a full-fledged forensic laboratory at the criminalistics office in 1939.

In 1943, returning from the front, M.M. Lyubavsky created the first student criminalistics club, which should be considered the beginning of student criminalistics at Sverdlovsk Law Institute.

In March 1948, the criminalistics section first appeared at the Citywide student scientific conference, where reports were prepared by SLI students. The best speakers were Romanov (topic “Search and seizure”) and Kim (topic “History of fingerprinting”).

In the 1950s, the scientific activity of criminalists at the SLI was focused on the use of technical means in the crime’s investigation. With the coming of D. Y. Mirsky and V. P. Tomilina at the Institute in the early 1950s, research began in the field of tactics for conducting investigative actions and methods for investigating certain types of crimes.

We should also focus on the candidate thesis of I. F. Gerasimov. Having experience in investigative activities in the prosecutor’s office, he managed to summarize the best experience of forensic practice into a strict system of theoretical foundations for the interaction of investigative and operational-search bodies in his thesis on the topic “Interaction of investigation and inquiry bodies in the investigation of especially dangerous crimes” in 1966.

The founder of the scientific school, I. F. Gerasimov, was actively involved in scientific work, was the author of more than 100 scientific papers on the problems of criminalistics tactics and methods of investigation of certain types and groups of crimes, including the monograph “Problems of solving crimes”.

The faculty of the Department was one of the first in the country to conduct a comprehensive study and lay the scientific foundations of the doctrine of forensic characteristics and investigative situations, formulated the basics of the theory of situational approach in criminalistics.

For many years, the Department is considered to be one of the main creative centers of forensic science. Forensic scientists, sensitively responding to changes in the political and socio-economic situation in the country, began to intensively develop a wide range of topical issues related to the creation of an active-offensive concept of the fight against organized crime.

Since 1957, the faculty of the department has published many scientific and educational-methodical works. Among them there are more than 50 department collections of scientific works, 28 educational and methodological manuals, dozens of recommendations for practical bodies.

One of the most famous textbooks on criminalistics in Russia, used in the educational process of many universities, is the department textbook “Criminalistics” edited by L.Y. Drapkin, which was reprinted several times.

Representatives of the scientific school - the teachers of the department - attract students to the implementation of their scientific projects, hold conferences, competitions, round tables.

Since its foundation and to this day, one of the priorities of the scientific school of the Department of criminalistics is close cooperation with law enforcement agencies. For many years, D. Y. Mirsky, M. A. Efimov, I. F. Gerasimov and other members of the faculty of the Department gave lectures and published practical manuals for employees of the Prosecutor’s office and the police, and the employees of these bodies themselves were involved in teaching and participating in the activities of student scientific clubs.