CRIMINOLOGY, LEGAL ANALYTICS, AND LEGAL TECHNIQUE: INTERDISCIPLINARY FOUNDATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY CRIME RESEARCH

Abstract

. The article analyzes the potential of an interdisciplinary synthesis of criminology, legal analytics, and legal technique in the study of crime. It is asserted that traditional sectoral approaches are giving way to comprehensive models capable of accounting for the multifactorial nature of the determination of crime. On the basis of formal logic, the necessity of examining legal phenomena in their inseparable connection with their social effectiveness is derived. It is substantiated that legal analytics serves as a source of empirically verified knowledge about crime trends, enabling a transition to evidence-based policy. It is emphasized that high-quality data analysis (from statistics to Big Data) transforms information about crime into concrete legal decisions. Attention is focused on the criminological function of legal technique: the quality of legislative text, as well as the absence of conflicts and gaps, constitutes a guarantee of the effective operation of criminal law prohibitions. It is noted that legal technique serves as an important safeguard against crime. The importance of understanding legal-technical defects (conflicts, gaps, evaluative concepts) as independent criminogenic determinants that create «loopholes» for evading liability is emphasized. At the same time, the absence of a comprehensive model that would combine analytical data on crime with the technical-legal instrumentarium is ascertained. In this context, the concept of the «criminological cycle of lawmaking» is examined. It is argued that legal analytics provides empirical data on the object of regulation, while legal technique ensures their proper implementation in the normative text in order to achieve the maximum preventive effect of the law. The scientific novelty of the results lies in the comprehensive substantiation of an interdisciplinary model for the study of crime. In particular, the article for the first time develops the conceptual framework of the «criminological cycle of lawmaking»; improves the approach to understanding legal technique as a safeguard against crime through the substantiation of the criminogenic nature of legal-technical defects; further develops the definition of «legal analytics» as a system of methods for transforming statistical information into legal decisions; and proposes an algorithm for the criminological examination of draft normative acts.