Women-prisoners in pre-revolutionary Russia (on the materials of M.N. Gernet's research)

This article examines the situation of women serving sentences for political and ordinary crimes, characterises the psychological state of women prisoners. The primary sources of material was the five-volume work History of the Royal Prison by M.N. Gernet; the works of other prominent Russian scholars (S.V. Poznyshev, N.M. Yadrintsev), memoirs of women prisoners were also used. Some of the archival materials in the article are first introduced into scientific use. In the course of the study, systematic, historical, comparative and analytical methods were used, which allowed to comprehensively consider the situation of women prisoners in pre-revolutionary Russia. The execution of criminal penalties by convicted women is one of the most difficult issues in legislative and practical terms. At all times, an imprisoned woman is seen as a martyr, who turned out to be in an alien environment. Of course, the path of crime she chose cannot be approved of, but since the conditions of deprivation of liberty do not take into account the peculiarities of the female body and psychology, the punishment becomes doubly heavy. This is clearly illustrated by examples from the life of prisoners in ordinary prisons of pre-revolutionary Russia. Being in isolation, often without the financial or moral support from outside, women practically lost social ties; their volitional sphere suffered, the ability to adapt to the conditions of life after liberation was low. There also were constant attacks on her sexual freedom and various forms of bullying. However, as practice shows, many of the "cornerstones" of modern execution of imprisonment against women was partly solved in the previous periods of the domestic penal system development. The study of this area of prison policy during the "great" reforms in the second half of the nineteenth century, the revitalisation of the revolutionary movement, changes in the composition of the prison population can help avoid current errors and miscalculations in finding ways to improve the rules governing the enforcement of sentences of imprisonment in relation to women.

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