Modern Approaches to Criminalistic Identification: The Role of Genomic Identification

Abstract

Criminalistic identification is an important instrument in the investigation of crimes. The article analyzes the classification of identification methods with an emphasis on genomic identification. The importance of applying modern methods of genomic identification in criminalistics is stressed, the problems associated with the collection of specimens for comparative research are studied, and the requirements to the collection of traces of biological origin are described. The author presents a review of publications and current research methods in the field of criminalistic identification. A classification of criminalistic identification based on different criteria is given, including the criteria of legal nature, type of reflection, evidential significance and properties of identified objects. Key methods of genomic identification, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), microsatellite analysis, DNA sequencing and others are examined within the context of their application in criminalistics. The author presents the results of analyzing the existing methods of genomic identification and the problems connected with specimen collection. The requirements to the collection of traces of biological origin are identified. However, it is considered impossible to offer a universal algorithm of identifying, collecting and preserving biological evidence. The analysis of the results allows the author to draw conclusions about the importance of genomic identification in criminalistics and the necessity of observing requirements to collecting the traces of biological origin.