The concept and content of the forensic characteristics of intentional destruction or damage of property

Introduction: official statistics show that the previously observed rate of decline in crime in the country has slowed down. At the same time, the average number of intentional destruction or damage to property over the past quarter of a century is quite high (20-25 thousand crimes per year). In 2020, almost two-thirds of intentional destruction or damage to property (Article 167 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, Part 2) remain unsolved (3456 out of 5302, i.e. 65.2 %). The object of the article is criminal activity related to intentional destruction or damage to property, as well as the specifics of their disclosure and investigation. The subject of the article is the regularities of the development of the science of criminalistics in the field of methodological and forensic support for the disclosure and investigation of intentional destruction or damage to property. Materials and Methods: the legal framework of the study was the Constitution of the Russian Federation, criminal legislation, criminal procedure legislation regulating the disclosure, investigation and prevention of intentional destruction or damage to property, official statistics for the last three years, the results of the analysis of criminal cases. The methods of cognition in the framework of this article are the activity and situational approaches, as well as general scientific and private scientific methods. Results of the Study: the concept and content of the forensic characteristics of intentional destruction or damage to property are given. Findings and Conclusions: the paper presents the main theoretical problems of criminalistic characterization of crimes, suggests the concept and structure of criminalistic characterization of intentional destruction or damage to property, and presents the interim results of the study.