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.