The state of prison institutions at the city of Krasnoyarsk of the Yenisei province from 1870to 1890-s (on the data of local officials’ correspondence)

The issue of the organization of penitentiary system in the Russian Empire in the second half of the XIX century was studied. Basing on the materials of official correspondence of local officials, the state of prison institutions of the city of Krasnoyarsk of the Yenisey province was reconstructed in the 1870-1890-s, local system for organizing prison administration was described, the appearance of prison institutions in the city of Krasnoyarsk (the Prison Castle, the Convict House) was reconstructed, and the sequence of reorganization of the prison of the city of Krasnoyarsk institutions was restored. Moreover, archival materials testify to the widespread participation of the Yenisey provincial administration in organizing prison affairs, the life of prisoners and their cultural development. The construction, reconstruction and repair of institutions, the supply of food and consumer goods, the arrangement of trade shops, the places of public worship in the penitentiary system on the territory of the Yenisey province were carried out under the leadership of the Yenisey Provincial Committee of Custody of the Society on Prisons acting since 1822, the control was carried out by the Main Department of Eastern Siberia (since 1887 by Irkutsk General Government), at the Central level opened in 1879 by the Main Prison Department. The premises of the Krasnoyarsk prison castle and the Convict House were rebuilt in the early 1880-s, and the projects to change them by employees of the Yenisey provincial administration were developed and offered from the second half of the 1870-s. Financial situation of penitentiary system in the Yenisei province and its administrative center, Krasnoyarsk, was recognized by local authorities as difficult. Radical reconstruction of penitentiary system in the Yenisey province 1895 was carried out in the course of the reform of the institutions of the Ministry of internal Affairs, when Prison Department was created under the Office of the Provincial administration headed by provincial prison inspectors. Similar management structure was maintained until 1917.