THE DEVELOPMENT, PURPOSE, AND TASKS OF FORENSIC SCIENCE

THE DEVELOPMENT, PURPOSE, AND TASKS OF FORENSIC SCIENCE Lecturer Aurel Octavian PASAT1 Abstract The study deals with introductory notions about forensic science, approaches the concept of forensic science by making a brief history on the development of this science and the laws underlying the development of forensic science. It also examines the conceptual issues of the purpose of forensic science, analysing the views of different scientists on the issue under consideration. Thus, the aim of forensic science is the development of methods, tools, techniques and recommendations for the organisation of practical activities. The general task of forensic science is to provide scientific support for the activities of law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime. Keywords: forensic science, purpose of forensic science, methods, tools, techniques, task of forensic science. JEL Classification: K14 1. Introduction A person's social being is diverse, as are the contradictions and conflicts that accompany it. It is this that determines the difficulties that arise in social relations per se and in the relationship between society and the individual, various social cells in society, classes, social groups etc., specific people as members of society and as individuals - especially in the relationship between them. A special type of social activity with a minus sign is people's criminal activity, the commission of crime. An ever deeper insight into the problem of crime has shown the need to use the achievements of other sciences and independent methods of exposing criminals in the fight against crime, such as: - forensic science, synthesizing legal and technical, natural, etc. methods of fighting crime; - medicine (psychiatry); - forensic psychology, etc. However, none of the named sciences covered (and could not, because of its specificity) the problem of crime as a whole. However, their development has led to the emergence of a special science that studies crime as a phenomenon that exists in society, associated (and conditioned) with other social phenomena, that has its own laws of origin, existence and development, requiring specific and diverse forms of combating it. Criminalistics has become such a science. All that is characteristic of the 19th century ("the century of steam") is the rapid growth of science and technology, the liberalisation of power regimes, the mass exodus of peasants to the cities, the weakening of patriarchal foundations and the enrichment of citizens, the concentration of capital, entrepreneurship as a guarantee of success and risk as the norm of life, the division of labour, its professionalisation, and another phenomenon: crime. Criminality, through the use of increasingly sophisticated methods, including scienceintensive methods of committing and concealing crime, has swept through Germany, France, England and the United States. Punitive bodies, which had previously worked on the basis of day-to-day experience, now proved powerless. A social order was therefore needed for a system capable of resisting crime of a new quality. To this order of state and society, science responded by creating a branch of knowledge, which the Austrian criminal scientist and later university professor Hans Gross at the end of the 19th century called criminalistics (from the Latin crimen - crime). Between 1838 and 1841, a two-volume manual for the investigation of Ludwig von Jagemann was published in Frankfurt. The first volume is devoted to the theory of investigation. In the second volume, based on 344 examples from practice, the essence of the "pragmatics of investigation" is considered, i.e. advice and instructions are given for its production, a number of which are clearly of a forensic nature. Similar works have been published in Russia: "Fundamentals of criminal trials with 1 Aurel Octavian Pasat - Cross-border Faculty, "Dunarea de Jos" University, Romania, . Perspectives of Law and Public Administration Volume 11, Issue 2, June 2022 324 application to the Russian criminal process" by Ya. Barshev (1841)2, "Rules and Forms of Investigations Compiled According to the Code of Laws" by E. Kolokolov (1850) 3 and other recommendations for detecting additions, erasures, and alterations of wills, bills, and other transaction documents. 2. Development of forensic science The development of forensic science - a scientific discipline that was first put at the service of justice - brought to life the procedural figure of a knowledgeable person: forensic scientists became indispensable participants in cases of investigation of assault on life and bodily harm, then competent people from other fields of science, technology and crafts began to be called in to help. The institution of forensic expertise was actively formed, which served as another stimulus for the development and use of forensic knowledge. The trend to consolidate this knowledge was particularly strong at the end of the 19 th and beginning of the 20th century. It found expression in the writings of a whole galaxy of police and judicial officials and scientists - the pioneers of the emerging science. This work went in three directions: a) the development and improvement of the means of criminal recording (as forensic recording was then called) and the search for criminals, in which the police were particularly interested; b) the development of scientific methods for the study of physical evidence; c) the development and systematisation of techniques and methods for organising and planning an investigation, means, techniques and methods for detecting, securing and using evidence. The first direction was mainly represented by research in the field of anthropometry, fingerprints, description of a person's appearance, photography. In 1882, Alphonse Bertillon, an employee of the Paris police prefecture, proposed a method of anthropometric recording and identification of criminals, based on the calculations of the Belgian statistician Quetelet, who proved that no two people in the world had the same size of all parts of their body. Bertillon proposed to take 11 measurements, which in his opinion are sufficient to establish a person's identity at a second arrest. The method, which has been called "bertillonage", has been introduced in all advanced countries. But almost immediately, significant shortcomings of the anthropometric method were revealed. It was difficult to obtain the necessary accuracy of body measurements for police officers, especially those in the provinces, and errors were very likely. The variability of human body growth was also a stumbling block, and Bertillon thought it lasted up to 23 years, while other scientists named different ages - both 30 and 35. This method could not be applied to minors at all and it was difficult to measure women's heads because of the long hair. Almost simultaneously with bertillonage, the method of recording fingerprints appeared, pioneers of which were William He (...truncated)