History of imprisonment as a punishment (legal aspect)

In the process of civilization development at a certain stage in societies-states social values protected by the authorities began to form, accordingly rules of conduct were established, for violation of which the guilty were subjected to negative consequences for them. Then the law as a fundamental social regulator received its systemic consolidation in the form of various kinds of laws and mechanisms for their implementation. In this context, criminal law appeared, defining the composition of socially dangerous acts (crimes) and punishments for their commission. One of the criminal punishments that has been used for many centuries is deprivation of liberty as the above-mentioned most important social value. The article examines the main trends, starting with the origins, legislative regulation of the appointment and execution of this type of criminal punishment, with an emphasis on Russian history before the 16th century, when this punishment was clearly considered a type of punishment, and not a procedural measure. Accordingly, the normative legal acts of past years, from which the legal consolidation of punishment in the form of imprisonment began, as well as scientific works that touch on the stated topic, are analyzed. It is noted, in particular, that imprisonment as a criminal punishment began to appear at the stage when the institution of punishment itself, which emerged from revenge in ancient societies, began to differentiate into different types, and this differentiation took quite a long period. For example, in Russia, imprisonment as a punishment at the systemic level began to be regulated and applied only from the 15th-16th centuries.