HISTORICAL PREREQUISITES, LEGAL STATUS AND PECULIARITIES OF ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN’S COLONIES FOR MINORS IN THE USSR

Abstract

The article reveals the historical preconditions for the creation and development of children’s colonies for minors in the USSR, their place in the process of combating child homelessness and neglect. Since the establishment of children’s colonies in 1918, their main task has been to organize the educational process for minors, although in practice the main emphasis was on labor education and the involvement of homeless children. Formally, such institutions for minors became institutions for the socialization of homeless and neglected children released from colonies. It was established that the detention of juveniles in labor colonies was intended, first, to isolate them from the influence of adult criminals, especially recidivists; secondly, through work and the educational process to form full members of society. Legally, the first legal act approving the legal status of juvenile colonies was the Correctional Labor Code of October 16, 1924. In accordance with the provisions declared in it, all juveniles in child labor colonies were divided into several categories, respectively to the age gradation that operated in the receivers-distributors. Moral and pedagogical abilities were also taken into account. Children’s colonies were part of the general system of correctional facilities, which were regulated by the Correctional Labor Code, but differed in different types of regime in which they operated. Children’s colonies differed from classical prisons in their education and labor education. Self-sufficient citizens aware of their rights and responsibilities were formed in the colonies. It is the labor colonies for juveniles that have become the main type of places for juveniles and homeless and neglected children. These facilities were not only to teach juvenile prisoners labor skills, but also to educate them according to their social status, age, mental and psychological abilities. Children’s labor colonies became part of the Gulag. As of 1939, there were 50 juvenile colonies in this system. It was established that children’s labor colonies stationed in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR were differentiated both in terms of terms of imprisonment for serious crimes and in terms of isolation of juvenile “recidivists” and violators of the regime. The formation of the network of children’s labor colonies was conditioned both by the desire to combat juvenile delinquency and by the attempt to apply educational measures to persons deprived of parental care, while using them as cheap labor.