Фактори трансформації інституту ув’язнення у Російській імперії в першій половині ХІХ ст.

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of such social processes as the growth of crime and vagrancy and begging on the transformation of the penal policy of the Russian Empire in the fi rst half of the 19th century, in particular, their impact on the transfor- mation of the institution of imprisonment. Th e research methodology is based on the principles of a concrete-historical approach or historicism. Quantitative research methods, historical com- parative method, general scientifi c methods of analysis and synthesis were used in the research. Scientifi c novelty. In the study, an attempt was made to explore the specifi cs of the transforma- tion of prison regulation in the Russian Empire under the infl uence of social factors. Th e major- ity of researches, both of the 19th century and modern ones, determine as factors the infl uence of the political and legal thought of the Enlightenment era and the infl uence of English philanth- ropists, fi ghters for penitentiary reforms. Th is work focuses attention on social processes and how they infl uenced the course of prison transformations. Conclusions. In the fi rst third of the 19th century in the Russian Empire, as a result of wars, the weakening of state control, and tax increases, there was an increase in crime and increased manifestations of population mobility in the form of vagrancy and begging. Th e overcrowding of prisons and the strain on the deportation infrastructure as a result of these processes contributed to the fact that the authorities began to pay more attention to problems related to the penal system. Th e overcrowding of prisons served as the background against which the construction of new prison castles and the creation of the Society for the Care of Prisons took place. Th e increase in the cost of exile, which occurred as a result of the attempt to use this punishment to combat vagrancy, led to the formation of the arresting companies of the civil department. Having become a cheap alternative to exile, the authorities gradually increased the importance of this type of punishment, which slowed down the reform of criminal prisons for many years.