Some criminalistic problems of on-site testimony verification involving minor participants

Given the large number of crimes committed by minors, despite the downward trend in their dynamics, the involvement of minor offenders in criminal proceedings as a distinct group of procedural actors has become inevitable. Accordingly, the state is facing a pressing need to ensure that minors enter the criminal justice system in a way that is safe and takes into account their cognitive, moral, and psychological characteristics. Achieving this requires a robust scientific support for the process of preliminary investigation and the full range of investigative procedures in which minor suspects or witnesses take part. However, while some investigative practices have been well-supported by scholarly research, others, such as on-site verification of testimony when minors are involved, remain underexplored. The emergence of minors as a special category of participants in on-site testimony verification introduces many criminalistic problems that must be addressed. Here, some of the most common criminalistic difficulties encountered by law enforcement officials and demanding scholarly solutions were examined in order to develop practical recommendations. The recommendations were formulated using the identified system of theoretical and applied provisions, as well as considering the results of the analysis of the empirical base, which summarized data on 20 criminal cases with minors involved in the on-site testimony verification procedures and the anonymous survey of 15 investigators, each with at least two years of professional experience.

1. Andrianova O.Yu. Criminal proceedings in cases involving minors. Cand. Sci. (Law) Diss. Vladimir, 2006. 193 p. (In Russian)

2. Anuchkina A.D. Safeguarding the interests of minors in adversarial criminal proceedings. Cand. Sci. (Law) Diss. Kislovodsk, 2010. 222 p. (In Russian)

3. Zainullin R.I. Ochnaya stavka s uchastiem nesovershennoletnego obvinyaemogo [Confrontation with the Participation of a Minor Defendant]. Makarenko I.A. (Ed.). Moscow, Biblio-Globus, 2016. 209 p. (In Russian)

4. Savitskaya I.G. On the participation of minors in investigative experiments. Vestnik Voronezhskogo Instituta MVD Rossii, 2017, no. 4, pp. 73–78. (In Russian)

5. Soya-Serko L.A. Proverka pokazanii na meste [On-Site Verification Testimony]. Ratinov A.R. (Ed.). Moscow, 1966. 90 p. (In Russian)

6. Belousov V.I., Natura A.I. Proverka pokazanii na meste v khode predvaritel’nogo rassledovaniya [On-Site Verification of Testimony in Preliminary Investigation]. Moscow, Yurlitinform, 2006. 140 p. (In Russian)

7. Khlyntsov M.N. Proverka pokazanii na meste [On-Site Verification of Testimony]. Rasseikin D.P. (Ed.). Saratov, 1971. 120 p. (In Russian)

8. Eksarkhopulo A.A., Makarenko I.A., Zainullin R.I. Kriminalistika [Criminalistics]. Moscow, Yurait, 2024. 477 p. (In Russian)

9. Kassin S.M., Kiechel K.L. The social psychology of false confessions: Compliance, internalization, and confabulation. Psychological Science, 1996, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 125–128. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00344.x.

10. Zainullin R.I. Some aspects of the forensic assessment of the reliability of the testimony of minor victims. Yuridicheskaya Nauka i Praktika: Vestnik Nizhegorodskoi Akademii MVD Rossii, 2021, no. 2 (54), pp. 69–71. https://doi.org/10.36511/2078-5356-2021-2-69-71. (In Russian)

11. Khaliullina A.F. Some aspects of the criminalistic assessment of the reliability of evidence obtained using expert knowledge in the investigation of crimes involving minors. Pravovoe Gosudarstvo: Teoriya i Praktika, 2025, no. 1 (79), pp. 205–212. https://doi.org/10.33184/pravgos-2025.1.22. (In Russian)

12. Aminev F.G. Providing scholarly, methodological, and information support to forensic examinations. Vestnik Kriminalistiki, 2020, no. 2 (74), pp. 37–45. (In Russian)