Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

In the epoch when terrorism and other serious crimes are cross-border problem, both the European Union and its Member States are responsible to their citizens for full ensuring of area of their internal security. Criminal offences against property or property crimes endanger the property of individuals and legal entities, as well as jeopardize their property interests. Consequently, the property rights, which are jeopardized by the crimes, are guaranteed by the State and are ensured by the Law Enforcement Authorities. Quantitatively, the largest group of criminal offences is composed by the crimes that can only be done on purpose of greediness, and most of them express themselves as the unlawful expropriation of the unfamiliar property from the lawful possession, in order to deal with that asset as their own. Such crimes are theft, robbery, extortion, fraud, and they together form more than half of all offences committed. For their research, the authors of the article have chosen the crimes with high public hazard degree from the offences against property. These offences are most of all affected by the globalization processes in the world, and they are: crimes related to a transport vehicle as a threat object; thefts from cultural objects where the objects of danger are churches or religious articles; modern frauds, when during their realization modern technical tools and new technologies are used. During the research, the co-author of the article – Prof. Dr. Jānis Ivančiks, has deceased suddenly. However, the years of joint work, discussions and scientific disputes, that accompanied the writing of this article and other written works allow co-authors to maintain the position and scientific views of this outstanding scientist in the field of forensic investigations and operational activities of special divisions. The authors show in this work the creative activity in the field of legal norms which affect personal property of individuals and their feeling, when the lawmakers eliminate the unnecessary rules, create new or improve existing ones in accordance with the country’s political, economic situation and globalization processes.

The authors deal with the history of formation of operational and investigative psychology as a field of knowledge influencing the national security. The article discloses in details some psychological essentials of the application of this knowledge in everyday activities of employees of special forces units, police, prosecutor’s office, courts, punishment execution system and other law enforcement institutions. The authors also notes as important that during operational activities, in the process of determination of the truth, officers have not only to help in the reproduction of the facts, but also to try to achieve the truthfulness of the evidence. Because of applying, psychological techniques of operational investigative psychology create conditions for acquisition of correct and complete information about facts, particular events being of interest to law enforcement institutions ensuring necessary impact on persons who intentionally want to hide the truth and often forward false information. Therefore, the acquisition of psychological knowledge in the operational and investigative activities is a necessity for law enforcement institutions.

In the modern world it is hard to imagine any field that would not depend to some extent on electric energy resources; however, the use of electricity is not always legal and general information shows that criminal offences in electricity networks are widespread in the world. Instability in the electricity market is a serious threat to energy supply security in every country and it influences economical, social and political welfare. In order to determine solutions to prevent the above mentioned cases, it is useful to study the experience of legal systems and case-law close to Latvia in relation to the above mentioned criminal offences, as well as to examine the existing problems and particularities of the situation. Taking into account foreign experience in developing legislative acts on prevention of criminal offences related to unlawful use of electricity and their application in practice, this research provides an insight into national legislation and caselaw in this field in several countries – the Russian Federation, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Poland, and the Republic of Lithuania. Analysing the results of the research and the real situation, conclusions on the peculiarities of electricity thefts, foreign practice and possible solutions to improve the situation in Latvia can be drawn.

The basis of this paper is the study of legislative acts of such counties as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Ukrainie and Russia, related to national security, public order and interests of state prosperity in order to prevent disorders or crimes, to protect health and morality, to safeguard rights and freedoms. The objective of the paper is to assess whether the national legislation meets in this field contemporary requirements, and what are differences in comparison with the legislation of other countries. Our results show that the laws of above mentioned countries are supplemented in due time as much as possible taking into account needs and financial resources of corresponding state. The laws have also similar objectives and tasks. There are some distinctions in application of legal provisions, which, after discussion, would be usefully to introduce into normative regulations of the Republic of Latvia. The norms of law must be clearly defined; the commensurate restrictions must be appropriate for achievement of particular objective, as well as socially necessary. Moreover, the authors of the paper offer concrete proposals taking into account human rights, contemporary situation on the international scene, as well as potential of respective state institution.

The article presents the current issues and latest trends of the first public security policy priority – analysis is made of how public security is ensured in the field of public order. The research starts with the discussion of the legal basis for ensuring public order, primarily revealing the concept of public order as such and today’s main threats to public order. Further, analysis covers the problematic aspects of the legal protection of public order: the legal mechanisms of order protection are discussed, whether they are effective, if not effective, how the legal regulation in this field is to be perfected. Attention is also devoted to the problems of human rights protection while ensuring public order. Hereafter, an analysis is provided of the administrative aspects of ensuring public order, covering the setup of the state and municipal institutions, responsible for maintenance of public order, and problems of their activity organisation and coordination. Special attention in this work is devoted to the state-of-the-art problematic aspects of police activity organisation, to the compatibility of the functions and competences of the Public Security Service, analysis of strategic goals, to the research of the opportunities of municipality and local communities for their participation in maintaining public order. As a result in this research is emphasised the importance of decentralisation in ensuring public order; the main guidelines of modernisation in this field are presented. The authors applied general scientific methods of studying objective reality, peculiar to legal sciences: systematic document analysis, meta-analysis, structural-functional analysis, teleological, comparative, critical approach, generalisation and prediction.

Crime is an essential social problem that seriously influences the security of the society and every individual. Social security, in turn, rather closely correlates with state security. Recidivism takes an important place in the general structure of crime and is closely related with the organized crime and state security. Trying to solve the problems of crime by isolating the criminals, at the same time overlooking the gaps in legal and moral cognition, the consequences of crime are temporary prevented but the causes of this problem is often not unmade thus reinforcing the risk of recidivism. The increase of the crime rate among females becomes more topical that taking into account the role of women in the process of reproduction directly influences mental health and security of the society. That, in turn, strengthens the necessity to study the causes of female crime, as well as those determinants that deter the representatives of certain gender from the criminal action. In this regard the study of psychological preconditions in the context of gender differences can arouse interest, highlighting such component of moral and legal cognition as justice.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union the control over the production and sales of narcotic substances in Latvia and Lithuanian decreased significantly. In 1992 the law that stipulated compulsory treatment for drug addiction was abolished. At about the same time relationships among drug addicts underwent a drastic change. In the 70’s and the 80’s drug addicts acquired and produced narcotics themselves but in the 90’s with the start of economic growth, organised crime started to flood the market of our countries with cocaine, Ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines which took over the traditional homemade narcotic substances.