Abstract: The subject of the study is the financial and economic prerequisites of the hardware confrontation on the strategy and priorities of the development of the Soviet correctional labor system, observed at the turn of the 1920s-1930s. Archival documents of that era are analyzed, indicating that the NKVD of the RSFSR and its subordinate Main Directorate of places of detention in the specified period experienced an acute shortage of funds for the maintenance of constantly an increasing contingent of prisoners. The leadership of the People's Commissariat (V. N. Tolmachev) and GUMZ (E. G. Shirvindt) made significant hardware efforts to eliminate the shortage of monetary resources and, with the support of the SNK of the RSFSR, sometimes even acted bypassing the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR for these purposes. Therefore, including for this reason, it categorically refused to participate in the financing of measures to create new correctional labor camps under the auspices of the OGPU. At the same time, representatives of the NKVD opposed the very idea of expanding the camp system and transferring other categories of prisoners to the OGPU in addition to those convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes. The article also cites other archival documents, which, together with the rest of the sources analyzed in it, cast doubt on the well-established opinion that the head of the NKVD V. N. Tolmachev was one of the initiators of the project of transition to a mass system of camp organization of forced labor of prisoners in the USSR.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2021.6.33868

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the teachings of the Austrian medical scientist and naturalist Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828) on anthropology and human psychology. One of the key theses of Gall’s doctrine consists in the conclusion that the peculiarities of human anthropology and psychology manifest in various forms of social activity. According to Gall, the specificity of physiological processes in human body, peculiarities of personality development, and the intensity of external manifestation of personality traits are substantiated by the peculiarities of formation and subsequent development of separate parts and elements of the human brain. Developmental imbalances or existence of pathologies in the segment of the brain located above the ear canal of the human skull imparts a negative overtone on personality traits. In a worst-case scenario, this may lead to manifestation of such destructive qualities as a pathological lust for violence against animals and people, propensity for arson, and ultimately, homicide. Similar cerebral dysfunctions many have a significant impact upon sexual behavior of a person, and activate destructive qualities. The ideas of F. J. Gall on the influence of developmental imbalances or pathology of separate segments of the human brain upon the occurrence and manifestation of negative personality traits, are still used in modern research in the field of neurocriminology. Namely, the recent findings of American scientists, which are based on the methods of magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography, reveal substantial differences in the structure and functionality of separate segments of the brain of persons who committed murder or convicted of less grave offences.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2020.7.33045

Abstract: This article represents a brief overview of the teaching of Austrian medical scholar and natural scientist Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) on human anthropology and psychology. Soviet science viewed Gall as a creator of pseudoscience of phrenology, although in prerevolutionary period, he received mostly complimentary assessment. For example, the prominent Russian criminalist D. A. Dril called Gall a “father of criminal anthropology”. In order to determine the objectivity of such assessments, the author attempted to distill the essence of Gall’s doctrine and assess his conclusions regarding the formation of such branch of criminology as criminal anthropology. The research methodology is based on the analysis of monograph works of F. J. Gall and subsequent summarization of the key theses of psychophysiological doctrine of Austrian scholar. In his works, Gall substantiated the ides that the moral qualities and intellectual abilities are innate, and their manifestation depends on the organization of the brain, which is the organ of all propensities and aptitudes. In his opinion, different parts of brain are responsible for completely different functions. The author concludes that the widespread in Soviet science interpretation of the role of Gall in the area of phrenology is inadequate to reality. Firstly, Gall never attributed any special merits to himself pertaining to studying connection between the form of human skull and peculiarities of his psyche and intellect; and secondly, not disputing the existence of such connection, he however, did not establish any strong patterns.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2020.7.43345

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2020.2.32112

Abstract: This article presents a brief excurse into the history of the conception of one of the leading movements of criminological science – anthropological criminology. Analytical review of the opinion of leading psychiatrists and forensic pathologists of the early XIX century is given regarding the facts of commission of motiveless violent crimes by individuals without evident mental disorder, which were increasingly recorded by law enforcement of that time. This phenomenon was sequentially named “delirium-free mania”, “monomania”, “moral insanity”, and other terms. The methodology is based on the retrospective analysis of the discourse field formed in the early XIX century around the phenomenon of “monomania” (moral insanity) in Russian and foreign literature on law and forensic psychiatry. The materials presented in this article allow reallocating emphases in the scientific discourse on the origins of criminal anthropology branch within criminology. The main conclusion of the conducted research consists in the fact that beginning of the study of monomania (moral insanity) should be viewed as the starting point in formation of anthropological criminology – one of the two leading branches of criminological science (alongside sociology of crime). This conclusion is made on the basis of analysis of the rarest foreign and Russian literature, most of which has not been republished for approximately 200 years.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0684.2020.2.33182

Abstract: The subject of this research is the historical prerequisites of formation of the modern Russian model of state administration with its enormous corruption component. Analysis is conducted on the sociopolitical processes that took place in Russia, since the origin of conception of its statehood (formation of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir) until the events of past decade. A wide variety of literature of the Russian and foreign authors dedicated to the historical and institutional aspects of formation of national and foreign statehood became the source base for this research. An attempt is made to determine the fundamental factors of the emergence and wide spread of various manifestations of corruption at all stages of existence of the Russian state. A conclusion is made that drastic reconstruction of the historically established in Russia model of relationship between the government and society, and thus, decline in the scale of corruption, are possible only under the condition of formation of a large social coalition that supports: 1) the expansion of pluralistic basis in creation and development of the mode of operation of political institutions; 2) further public control over their activity. The reference point of such processes can become only a historical situation, which marks an informed need of broad social circles to be able to fully exercise political rights, and simultaneous response to such request from the acting political elite.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2020.2.43305

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0668.2016.4.19666

Abstract: This article analyses the ideological prerequisites, content, and experience of application of the spatial analysis in examination of regularities of the establishment of territorial differences of crime indexes and causative complex of criminality in general. The author describes the prospects of implementation of the results of spatial analysis of development of the socioeconomic processes in increasing the efficiency of functionality of a system of social control over crime. Analysis of the modern sociopolitical situation in the Russian Federation from a territorial perspective gives grounds to review criminality as one of the parameters of the state of social community of certain level. A strong interrelation of criminality with the social wellbeing of the members of this community is subjected to criminological research– the better it is (in comparison with the social wellbeing of the members of typologically similar communities of people), the lower are the crime indexes. In its turn, the social wellbeing of population of a specific social territorial community depends on the rates and vectors of its development: the more dynamic and gradual is the development of a peculiar social community in socioeconomic or other aspects, the higher is the level of social wellbeing of people within this community. Crime indexes serve as an indicator of the state of social organism of certain scale (on the level of settlement, region, or country as a whole), the “activation” of which, i.e. a comparative decline of crime indexes, alerts about the emergence of a certain dysfunction inside this organism. The most unfavorable among them that leads to a stable increase of the crime rate, is the occurrence of misbalance between the potential of socioeconomic development, and the character and rates of such development in reality. Crime indexes along with its dynamics must one of the targeted indicators in evaluation of efficiency of implementation of the socioeconomic policy on all levels.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2016.4.18159

Abstract: The object of this research is the capabilities and prospects of the application of the achievements of spatial science in criminological research. The subject of this research is the methodology of spatial analysis of the socioeconomic development of Russian regions, which in turn is the primary stage of research in the area of spatial analysis of the causes of crime. The article presents the sequence of actions at this stage, describes the logical model of development of the socioeconomic processes in the space of a separate region, as well as criteria for the evaluation of the level of success of the functionality of the regional socioeconomic system. The scientific novelty consists in devising the methodology of spatial analysis of the socioeconomic development of Russian regions, which is in turn based on the general theoretical-methodological platform of the spatial analysis of the socioeconomic events and processes, including crime. The author substantiates the hypothesis that the level of success of the socioeconomic development of any particular territory that is assessed from the perspective of the analysis of the data on the level and dynamics of economic development of a region, rate of reproduction of its demographic base, quality of the health of its population, as well as the quality of the population as a whole (level of education, etc.), is determined by the vector and intensiveness of the “center-periphery” processes on one hand, and the level of the clarity of the process of compression of social space on the other.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2016.4.42925

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2016.3.18131

Abstract: The object of this research is the capabilities and prospects of using the achievements of spatial science in criminological research. The subject of this research is the theoretical prerequisites and methodological basis for application of methods of spatial analysis in cognition of the mechanismof determination of crime. The author raises the question on the importance of formation within the modern researcher of regularities of formation of territorial differences in the indexes of crime of a specific spatial or geographic thinking. It allows grasping the regularities of the functionality of a particular social system within the spatial aspect, which in turn can be “layered” onto already known regularities of formation of the territorial differences in crime and as a result, expand the understanding of the mechanism of determination of crime overall. The scientific novelty of this research consists in the analysis of the theoretical prerequisites and development of methodological basis for spatial analysis of the socioeconomic events and processes, including crime. Spatial analysis is being positioned as an autonomous, narrower direction of scientific research within the framework of geography of crime, which in turn represents one of the sections of criminological theory of determination, studying the causal complex of criminality in the theoretical aspect.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2016.3.42923