Problems in the Development of Legal Cybernetics

The Fifth Learned Conference on Problems of Legal Cybernetics was held in November 1975 at the USSR Ministry of Justice. Its participants summarized the results of scientific research in the use of computers and mathematical methods in the work of law-enforcement agencies and scholarly institutions in the legal field. Lawyers, working together with mathematicians and technicians, have accomplished a good deal in the last few years. Research in this field has taken on a broader scope. Along with the quest for ways of solving information-search, statistical, and criminalistic problems, research has been done with the object of creating an automated control system (ACS) for the internal affairs agencies, the procuracy, and the justice ministry. A ramified system of computer centers (CC) has been established within the system of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. A computerized equipment research laboratory is functioning in the USSR Institute on the Causes and Prevention of Crime, and there is also a CC in the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Judicial Expertise (NIISE) of the USSR Justice Ministry. They are equipped with punch-card and electronic computers (PCC and EC) of various categories, thanks to which it has been possible to undertake solution of important scientific and practical tasks. Fruitful studies are being carried out in the USSR Research Institute on Soviet Legislation (VNIISZ) and other research institutions to work out legal principles and normative acts to organize more effectively the functioning of various levels of automated control systems and computer centers and to add to the prevailing legislation with respect to various problems, including newly arisen ones pertaining to legal regulation of social and technical organizational relationships and of administration under the conditions of automated control systems. Finally, legal applications of computers have achieved recognition as a scientific discipline. Law students at a number of higher educational institutions are studying it as a required subject.