Criminological dimension of law enforcement officers’ activities

The article examines certain aspects of the criminological dimension of law enforcement officers' activities. It is noted that the term "law enforcement officer” is studied through the system of law enforcement agencies and the circle of their employees; it is based on the analysis of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and other legal acts. It is substantiated that by the nature of their official powers, law enforcement officers are active participants in criminal legal relations, since they act as authorized officials entrusted with the performance of law enforcement functions. It is this function which is aimed at ensuring law and order, protecting the rights and freedoms of subjects of legal relations from criminal encroachments and is realized through detection, investigation, suppression and prevention of criminal offenses. It is emphasized that participation of law enforcement officers in criminal legal relations as subjects of a criminal offense or victims of a criminal offense is not excluded. It is substantiated that crime among law enforcement officers is particularly dangerous due to a number of factors and may be caused by a number of certain determinants. The authors emphasizes that among the stable trends in criminal offenses committed by law enforcement officers are the following: the level of criminal offenses committed by law enforcement officers corresponds to the general trends in crime, official crimes prevail over general criminal offenses, and the largest number of them are unlawful benefits, abuse of office, abuse of power, torture, etc. That is why the legislator created a new law enforcement agency, the State Bureau of Investigation, which began its operations in 2018. Creation of the State Bureau of Investigation as a pre-trial investigation body was a worthy response by the legislator to numerous public criticisms that the prosecution should be deprived of the pre-trial investigation function, and also in line with the experience of many countries, an effective mechanism for the prevention, detection, termination, disclosure and pre-trial investigation of criminal offenses within its jurisdiction in accordance with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. These are criminal offenses committed by senior officials, judges and law enforcement officers. Criminal offenses that are undoubtedly under the jurisdiction of the State Bureau of Investigation include torture (Article 127 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) committed by law enforcement officers.