Police surveillance over prostitution as an intrinsic element of ethical discipline in the conditions of regulation

Abstract

The authors examine the aspects of law enforcement practice of the local police authorities of the Russian Empire with regards to surveillance over prostitution in the conditions of its regulation since the late XIX century. Emphasis is made on analysis of the activity of police in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, which was among the first alongside the capital to establish medical-police committee. However, attention is focused not on the sanitary control, but rather surveillance carried out by the police officers over prostitutes and persons involved in organization of prostitution, multiple administrative norms and rules regulating such activity. The research is based on dialectical method of cognition that allows examining police surveillance over prostitution in evolution and interconnection of all its manifestations. The events and facts related to the process of regulation of prostitution were studied in accordance with the principle of historicism, Formal-legal method was applies in analyzing the departmental regulatory legal acts and police law enforcement practice of surveillance activity. The authors’ main contribution consists in examination and introduction into the scientific discourse of archival sources that helped to restore the mechanism of surveillance activity, which includes a range of organizational measures of local police authorities over prostitution and its organization.