Improvement of methodological and forensic support for investigating crimes against the family and minors on the basis of forecasting methods

Introduction. The data of official statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the last 5 years reveal the growth of criminal encroachments on the interests of the family and minors, whose protection is the duty of the state, fixed in the Fundamental Law of the Russian Federation. Despite the measures being undertaken, the effectiveness of some of them, including those to ensure inevitability of punishment for a committed act, raises questions and proves the urgency of improving the work of law enforcement agencies in the detection, investigation and prevention of crimes against the family and minors. Methods. The methodological basis of the research was formed by general scientific and private-scientific methods of cognition: dialectical, formal logic (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction), historical, systemic, comparative study, hermeneutic one and others. Results. On the basis of the analysis of scientific literature and questionnaire data of the preliminary investigation bodies’ staff, the author comes to the conclusion that the methodological recommendations on the investigation of certain types (groups) of crimes that are currently available in the investigative practice often contain gaps, and in some cases do not keep up with the transformation of criminal activity and, unfortunately, do not fulfil their function of providing practical units with the necessary methodological and forensic support. In order to solve the existing problems on counteraction to crimes against the family and minors, the author substantiates the necessity of using the methods of criminalistic forecasting in order to develop new techniques and improve the existing private methods of investigating crimes against the group under consideration.