Progressive system of serving custodial sentences in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries

The progressive system of serving custodial sentences in Russia began to develop in the late 19th century, taking into account the decisions of international penitentiary congresses and foreign experience. Despite the backwardness of the tsarist penitentiary system, its exceptionally negative assessment in the scientific literature is hardly well-grounded. Several regulations of the Russian Empire during this period show the legislators' desire to encourage positive law-abiding behaviour of prisoners by improving their conditions of detention up to their parole. The basic idea of a progressive system of serving a sentence was based on the fact that the position of each prisoner depended on his conduct. In the middle of the 19th century, the Anglo-Irish system of serving custodial sentences was based on this principle. It has since been disseminated internationally through international prison congresses. Many Russian scientists supported such a system. The beginning of the reform of prison legislation and penitentiary practice in Russia was made by the law on "military-correctional companies (1967)," which provided for the division of prisoners into several categories under their conduct and staid correction. Similar principles were introduced under hard labour based on amendments to the Statute on the exiles. The Detention Charter (1832) amended in 1890 specifically provided for the so-called "squads of those reforming themselves." The final stage of the progressive system was the Russian Empire's Parole Act of 1909. Finally, the normative consolidation of the rational principles of the treatment of prisoners at the beginning of the 20th century was reflected in the General Prison Instruction approved by the Ministry of Justice in December 1915. Although the implementation of the relevant regulations was uneven and often left much to be desired, it is fair to conclude that in the case of the progressive system of serving the sentences in the late 19th and early 20th century, the penal system of the Russian Empire was not a "white spot" on the "penitentiary map" of Europe.

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