A HISTORICAL ESSAY ON THE LEGAL REGULATION OF PUNISHMENTS NOT INVOLVING ISOLATION FROM SOCIETY UNDER RUSSIAN CRIMINAL LAW

Abstract

Introduction: punishments not associated with isolation from society traditionally hold an important place in the system of criminal law measures. The author of this article adheres to the periodization concept according to which the development of criminal legislation on the discussed problem is divided into periods based on the content of the main normative acts (monuments of law) regulating such punishments. In the course of development, they transformed from vira (or wergeld, subsequently – a monetary fine), ‘putting to sack and pillage’ (which obtained the form of confiscation of property), to forced labor in its various forms (hard labor, correctional labor, compulsory labor, all alternative to imprisonment). Punishments not associated with isolation of the convicted person from society are restrictions of a right (or a combination of those) affecting different aspects of the convict’s status, including restrictions on freedom (exile, expulsion) or labor/property rights (correctional, compulsory works, fines, etc.). Purpose: to form an idea of the nature and process of legal regulation of punishments not associated with isolation from society under the criminal law of Russia on the basis of analysis of scientific sources, historical monuments of law, and foreign literature. Methods: comparative-legal and historical analysis, description, interpretation; theoretical methods of formal logic and synthesis; system-structural method; concretization, methods of deduction and induction. Results: the analysis of scientific commentaries, historical monuments, and foreign literature showed that during the Soviet period, the transformation of the complex of punishments not involving isolation from society consisted primarily in the use of public means of influence (public censure). Conclusions: the legal analysis revealed gradual abandoning of the type of punishments under discussion, with preservation of fines, various kinds of forced labor (obligatory, corrective, compulsory works), and confiscation of property as a supplementary measure of the criminal law nature.