Formation of the punishment system and functioning of Russian prisons in the 19th - early 20th century

The article is devoted to how the perception of punishment in Russian society has changed and affected the system of punishment. The authors analyze in detail how the idea of punishing a person who committed a crime against society was reflected in the works of historians and jurists, and come to the conclusion that there is a gradual change in both philosophical, theoretical and practical aspects of the attitude to punishment from punishing the body to spirit punishment. The authors note that crime is an organic phenomenon that has its roots not only in individual, but also in general causes. Society has radically changed its view not only of crime, but also of punishment. The society gradually abandon those methods of punishment that consisted of physical torture and infliction of pain and bodily suffering and stop mainly in imprisonment. Focusing on this thesis, the authors of the article describe how things actually were during the formation of the unified penitentiary legislation of pre-revolutionary Russia. They conclude that in the described period, for the first time in the history of the Russian state, the system of places of detention, the procedure and conditions of serving punishment for prisoners, forms and methods of penitentiary punitive influence on them were defined.