The digital portal "Criminological Planning" is the main assistant in making managerial decisions in the field of crime prevention

Laptev Andrei Sergeevich Chief Inspector, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Kurgan region 640000, Russia, Kurgan region, Kurgan, Kuibyshev str., 81 and420@mail.ru

Justification of the urgency of the problem. In the modern period, despite the declared achievements in countering certain types of serious and especially serious crimes ^[1], in general, crime poses a real threat to the national security of Russia, and therefore is one of the most acute problems of both the state as a whole and each subject of the Russian Federation individually, given their significant differences in geographical, religious, socio-economic and many other aspects.

This is evidenced by the commission in the 1st half of 2023 by organized groups or criminal communities of 18.4 thousand serious and especially serious crimes (+15.9%), by foreign citizens and stateless persons in the territory - 22.4 thousand crimes (+6.3%). 318.5 thousand crimes committed using information and telecommunication technologies or in the field of computer information were registered (+27.9%), and their share in the total number of registered crimes increased from 24.8% in January-June 2022 to 32.4%.

At the same time, only 6.6% of the registered encroachments provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation were suppressed at the stage of preparation and assassination.

In the subjects of the Russian Federation, there are also "bursts" of certain categories of crimes that significantly affect the well-being of citizens and the state. In particular, an increase in the number of registered criminal acts related to illegal arms trafficking is noted in Belgorod (+134.9%), Kostroma (+59.0%), Sakhalin (+46.2%) regions, the Republics of Khakassia (+60.8%), Adygea (+56.5%), IT crimes – in Nenets JSC (+121.9%), the Republic of Ingushetia (+103.7%), Yaroslavl (+75.3%), Novgorod (+69.7%), Lipetsk (+68.7%) regions. An increase in the number of deaths from crimes was recorded in the Republic of Adygea (+52.2%), Chuvashia (+32.4%), Jewish Autonomous Region (+33.3%), Stavropol Territory (+32.4%), Lipetsk (+33.8%), Kurgan (+29.5%) regions ^[2].

Criminological planning plays an essential role in the organization of work on crime prevention. Planning, as a tool for organizing any sufficiently complex conscious activity, involves defining, specifying and fixing in terms of goals, objectives and means of their implementation. The obligation for the executors of the decisions provided for in the task plan makes planning a reliable means of legal support for achieving the goals set.

The methods and approaches currently developed at the regional level to the organization and implementation of planning measures aimed at countering criminal manifestations do not fully reflect the requirements of the time.

When studying the practice of complex crime prevention at the regional level, attention is drawn to the formalism in the organization of criminological planning, its actual unsystematic nature, expressed in conducting superficial analyses of the development of the criminogenic situation, crime forecasts, as well as low coordination between various entities engaged in crime prevention activities, which is confirmed, among other things, by research conducted by R.M. Abyzov ^[3] and A.V. Evseev ^[4].      

Along with this, there are virtually no stable information flows between neighboring subjects of the Federation concerning the work on crime prevention and prevention, and in modern conditions they are especially important, since it is impossible to seriously build a forecast, and, accordingly, a criminological program without taking into account the mutual influence of the regions.

As a result, in modern conditions, the relevance of issues related to information and analytical support of planning in the field of crime prevention in the regional (municipal) segment through the widespread introduction of communication technology achievements in criminological activities becomes especially clear in the emerging information society.      

The main part. Since 2002, work has begun in Russia on the introduction of technologies to optimize public administration and planning. The state Automated information System "Management" was originally created as a system that provides management of priority national projects, but 7 years later this traffic police became the basis of all electronic public administration.

In accordance with Articles 14, 40, 41, 42 of Federal Law No. 172-FZ of June 28, 2014, a federal information system for strategic planning appeared, which is implemented on the basis of the traffic police "Management". The FIS includes various indicators of socio-economic development, government programs, reports on the implementation of strategic planning documents and other necessary data. The system should ensure the formation and processing of data based on distributed information contained in federal, regional and municipal information resources and systems, official state statistics data, information necessary to support managerial decision-making in the field of public administration.

At the same time, the system in question was created in the field of strategic planning, primarily based on the competence of the Russian Government, as a result of which it covers documents directly related to socio-economic development, without affecting the national security planning block. However, it is precisely the relationship between planning in the field of socio-economic development and ensuring national security that is the most significant problem, the resolution of which will become the basis of emergence to achieve the goals and strategic priorities defined by the President of Russia in his Decrees No. 474 of July 21, 2020 and No. 400 of July 2, 2021.     

In recent years, there has been a gradual transition to a new qualitative stage of the technological process - from electronic to digital management, the main distinguishing feature of which is decision-making not only on the basis of accumulated experience and existing needs, but also decision-making anticipating needs based on analysis and forecast ^{[5, 6]}.

This process actually began with the launch in 2019 of the national project a "Digital Economy", which includes the federal project "Digital Public Administration", focused on the use of digital technologies and platform solutions in public administration, and that, in turn, the project "Digital Strategic Planning". The purpose of this project is to create a digital platform to support management decision-making in the field of strategic management, through informatization and automation of all processes of strategic planning, development and implementation of intelligent technologies (simulation, big data, cloud technologies, etc.).

In this regard, in order to create an effective system of integrated regional criminological planning, consolidating planning activities in the field of security and socio-economic development, providing timely and objective information technology and forecasting support, it is proposed to form a portal "Criminological planning" within the framework of the above platform.

The creation of such a portal is advisable precisely within the framework of the Digital Strategic Planning platform due to the fact that it already has all the necessary elements for planning (a register of documents, public discussion, control and monitoring, an analytical module, statistical data), partially similar subjects of use, while significantly reducing the cost of forming a new system.

In order to effectively solve both strategic and tactical tasks of information and analytical support of the planning process in the field of crime prevention, this portal should accumulate, process and eventually provide information by integrating data banks of various formats. All this is necessary to increase the speed of information exchange between departments (bodies, individual divisions), reduce document flow, and form an objective array of information.

The software systems available to the subjects of criminological planning, especially in the subjects of the Russian Federation, given their diversity, are usually fragmented, there are no uniform standards, classification, formalization of accumulated information.

The need to automate information work in the preparation of forecasts of the possible development of the criminological situation has already been touched upon in the works of individual scientists. In particular, according to T.A. Raskina ^[7], P.A. Pimenov ^[8], such a forecast depends on the available resource (technical) capabilities, processing, storage and use of criminologically significant and substantiated information.

The proposed portal will not only be reduced to separate stages of criminological planning (forecasting, monitoring), but will cover all its main stages with a significant reduction in time spent from obtaining data to the final implementation of certain measures ^{[9, 10]}.

At the same time, the experience of using information systems in the activities of law enforcement agencies to carry out analysis, forecasting (crimes, personalities of offenders, victims of crimes), determining crime prevention measures, including with reference to their geographical location, operational analysis of data from the Internet, as well as based on data from social networks with an assessment of the consequences their implementation has been actively used in foreign countries over the past decades ^{[11, 12, 13, 14, 15]}. 

Federal Law No. 172 of June 28, 2014 defines a strategic planning system, which also applies to criminological planning in general, including all levels of public authority provided for by the Constitution of the Russian Federation (federal, regional, municipal). In accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 786 dated May 26, 2021 "On the management system of state programs of the Russian Federation", the institute of state programs of the Russian Federation has been transformed since 2022 and the transition to new approaches to their development and implementation, including changes in the goal-setting system, structure and content, the formation of a management system affecting the state programs of the subject Of the Russian Federation, which include preventive programs developed taking into account the sectoral strategic planning documents of the Russian Federation. 

Thus, the main task of the state policy in the field of criminological planning is to strengthen the consistency in achieving the goals and objectives of national development, as well as the directions and tools to achieve them.

However, taking into account the need to ensure a single interconnected technological process of criminological planning at all levels, including, first of all, financial support issues, security management of the regions of the Russian Federation (their municipalities) exclusively from the federal center in modern conditions is ineffective and cannot provide the necessary effect due to differences in the conditions of their functioning ^[16].  

In this connection, the main level of development of the Criminological Planning portal, if there is a federal one, it is proposed to consider the regional level, which, based on the goals and objectives set by the federal government, taking into account the general measures reflected in the relevant state programs of the Russian Federation and other fundamental documents, will systematically accumulate information about the process of combating crime in fact, creating a single, networked regional information space with flexible and coordinated connections of all subjects of criminological planning in a particular region of the Russian Federation (managers of all levels, employees of departments, management facilities) not only at the vertical, but also at the horizontal levels ^{[17, 18]}, which is a significant difference from the existing model of hierarchical management.

At the same time, the research carried out by scientists ^{[19, 20]} showed that it is small connected groups of constant communication that are of great importance for the implementation of innovative ideas, which in the process of regional criminological planning are specific employees (heads) of individual federal departments, ministries (departments, departments) of regional (municipal) authorities, representatives of civil society institutions, who will be the main users of the Criminological Planning portal.

The appearance of the portal in the region will reduce the cycle of development, coordination and adoption of comprehensive documents on crime prevention, therefore, reduce the complexity of this process, concentrate resources on the most important (priority) issues.

In addition, the potential of the portal should allow it to become an integral part of the professional training of specialists in the field of criminological planning by means of a remote method of communication (together with representatives of federal ministries, law enforcement agencies, individual commercial organizations, etc., which will significantly reduce budget expenditures), provide knowledge exchange, initiate the activity of the educational community to overcome the factors hindering in this area as a result, to create for each region of Russia an optimal system of subjects involved in criminological planning, expressed, according to S.M. Inshakov, in the maximum realization of anti-criminal social potential ^[21].  

This provision is especially relevant taking into account the reflection in Article 49 of the Decree of the President of Russia dated November 8, 2021 No. 633 "On the approval of the Foundations of State Policy in the field of strategic planning in the Russian Federation" of the main tasks of staffing strategic and, accordingly, criminological planning, which currently stumbles in the vast majority of subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities on significant organizational and managerial problems associated with the insufficient level of competence of employees of regional authorities and local governments engaged in planning in the field of combating crime, who do not always even have the necessary understanding of the vector of movement.

It is assumed that the following components should function in the Criminological Planning portal:

- a data warehouse containing: interdepartmental, departmental planning documents of all levels concerning various areas of preventive activities that are not included in the list of strategic planning documents, decisions of coordination meetings of heads of law enforcement agencies, plans for operational and preventive operations, reports of all law enforcement agencies of the subject of the Russian Federation on the main areas of activity on the implementation of complex program documents, etc.; comprehensive criminological assessment of the region; information characterizing the actual state and projected level of development of criminogenic manifestations;

- service for identifying imbalances and criminological threats, risks in the implementation of planned documents, modeling the criminogenic situation in the region, municipality;

- a service for the development and coordination of programs, plans, forecasts, including a public communication portal and information and analytical support for subjects of criminological planning in terms of the distribution of work on the preparation of criminological planning documents with a distance learning system;

- a service that reflects and analyzes the financial support of planned, allocated and mastered during their implementation, the impact on the achievement of relevant goals; 

- domain of scientific knowledge in the field of criminological planning.

The creation of the portal under consideration objectively requires the availability of an appropriate information infrastructure that meets the needs of:

- continuous collection, processing and aggregation of accurate information in real time;

- providing the possibility of continuous work with large amounts of data of various structuring;

- creation of a single information space between departments (bodies) separated by functionality and network architecture for information exchange;

- formation of reliable information security mechanisms ^{[22, 23]}.

Thus, based on the need for an evolutionary build-up, and in some cases a significant modification of the data presentation structure taking into account the actions of portal users or when changing the characteristics of the external environment (criminological situation), including in the conditions of continuous operation, the portal "Criminological Planning" should be, first of all, an adaptive information system, including adaptive a database, an automated information processing system. This is especially true for a significant number of its users who differ in their main goals and experience in implementing planning activities to combat crime.

Conclusions. The Criminological Planning portal proposed for creation within the framework of the Digital Stratplanning platform can be defined as an adaptive information management system based on the information interconnection of its components, including a set of software and hardware tools and organizational and technological methods focused on the implementation of a comprehensive analysis of crime in general and its individual types at all levels management, forecasting the most important trends and patterns of its development, ensuring the process of preparing proposals for various solutions to emerging problems, supporting management decisions in the field of prevention by the leadership of the country, region, municipality and assessing the possible consequences of the implementation of these decisions.

As a result, an effective system of relations between subjects of criminological planning in the digital space and in real time will be formed, which is an urgent problem for management in modern Russia, which will allow coordinating efforts, establishing effective feedback taking into account vertical and horizontal links, including at the level of neighboring subjects of the Russian Federation, will improve the quality of accepted planning documents ^{[24, 25, 26]}.

Also, the fundamental difference of this portal will be the openness of the information contained in it, which is achieved by the interaction of the above-described elements of the system, providing information from several sources, its ordering, processing and bringing in a generalized form to the subjects of criminological planning.  

The portal should become a real assistant in the process of criminological planning at the regional level, where the tasks set by the country's leadership in the field of security are mainly implemented, and which is the main guideline in the preventive activities of municipal authorities.

At the same time, of course, it will not become a panacea in this work, since computer algorithms will predict only the risk of future events, and not real events, respectively, the proposed forecasts will be only part of the end-to-end process of criminological planning; even with the most complete software packages, system users should critically interpret the results of the analyses in order to exclude erroneous results., based on their own experience, to determine measures to influence crime, one or another of its manifestations.

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