Correlation of the concepts of operational search support and support: an invitation to a discussion

Introduction: the article analyzes the concepts of “operational search support”, “operational search support” and the practice of their application in modern science and regulations of the Ministry of internal Affairs of Russia. Materials and Methods: in the course of the research, about 1300 scientific, educational and methodological sources of literature on the problems of operational search activity were processed and analyzed in semantic, philosophical and legal aspects, including the use of advanced search on Internet resources - “elibrary.ru”, “cyberleninka.ru”, “rsl.ru” and legal reference databases “ConsultantPlus” and “Consultantplusmvd”. Results of the Study. Based on a comparative analysis of the normative and scientific use of the phrases “operational search support” and “operational search support”, the following concepts are formulated and proposed for discussion by the scientific community through the allocation of criteria for independence, publicity and the purpose of these activities: Findings and Conclusions: Based on a comparative analysis of regulatory and scientific use of the phrase “investigative software” and “investigative support”, the author suggests using the first in relation to the stages of detection and investigation of crime in the criminal process, and the second to the stages of prevention, detection and disclosure of crimes to a criminal case under the prevention, identification, documentation and disclosure of the alleged, continuing, and other “controlled” crimes or offences. It is pointed out that numerous areas of operational search work carried out outside the criminal process are not covered by the concept of “operational search support”, and therefore the scientific development of their classification is waiting for its researchers.