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Soviet Criminology: Its Birth and Demise, 1917-1936

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Extract

Shortly after the 1917 Revolution, the Soviet Union developed sophisticated and diversified criminological research. Well-trained lawyers, doctors, and social scientists obtained access to criminal statistics, research facilities, and funding and were unhampered by ideological limitations. The varieties of descriptive, statistical, and experimental research on crime conducted in criminological institutes by government agencies and independent researchers throughout the Soviet Union did much to advance criminologists’ understanding of the personality of the offender and the relationship between crime and social change.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1979

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References

1. A detailed account of the research and researchers is given in Shelley, Louise, “Soviet Criminology After the Revolution,” Journal of Law and Criminology, 70, no. 3 (1979): 39196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Gertsenzon, Utevskii, and Shirvindt were associated with the Gosudarstvennyi Institut po izucheniiu prestupnosti i prestupnika in the 1920s.

3. The only younger scholars who have written on the history of Soviet criminology are lu. Kasatkin, P., “Ocherk istorii izucheniia prestupnosti v SSSR” in Problemy iskoreniia prestupnosti (Moscow, 1965), pp. 187–225 Google Scholar; Il'ina, L. V., “Iz istorii razvitiia sovetskoi kriminologii,” Voprosy bor'by s prestupnosfiu, 7 (1968): 2941 Google Scholar; and Noi, I. S., Metodologicheskie problemy sovetskoi kriminologii (Saratov, 1975), p. 542.Google Scholar

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12. Savrosov, A. A., “Motiv v ubiistve,” in Proletarskaia revoliutsiia i pravo, no. 8-10 (1918), pp. 36–45Google Scholar, and in ibid., no. 11 (1919), pp. 36-46.

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25. The work of such Moscow scholars as Gernet, Rodin, Shirvindt, and Tarnovskii figured prominently in the journal.

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30. Il'ina, “Razvitie kriminologicheskikh issledovanii,” p. 99.

31. Ivanov, “Iz praktiki Saratovskogo Gubernskogo Kabineta,” p. 85.

32. Noi, Metodologicheskie problems, p. 7.

33. , O. D., “Otkrytie kriminologicheskogo kabineta pri Leningradskom gubsude,” Rabochii sud, 1925, no. 17-18, p. 785.Google Scholar

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35. Gernet, M. N., “Izuchenie prestupnosti i prestupnika,” in Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie penitentsiarnykh deiatelei (Moscow, 1928), p. 112.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p. 109.

37. Spasokukotskii, N, “Deiatel'nost1 gosudarstvennogo instituta po izucheniiu prestupnosti i prestupnika,” Problemy prestupnosti, no. 4 (1929), p. 149.Google Scholar

38. Il'ina, “Razvitie kriminologicheskikh issledovanii,” p. 139.

39. Spasokukotskii, , “Deiatel'nost1 gosudarstvennogo instituta,” Problemy prestupnosti, no. 4 (1929), p. 139.Google Scholar

40. Some of these journals included Eshenedel'nik sovetskoi iustitsii, organ of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, Sovetskoe pravo, journal of the Institute of Soviet Law, Administrativnyi vestnik, published by the NKVD, and the Biulleten’ tsentral'nogo statisticheskogo upravleniia.

41. Textbooks were published by Piontkovskii, A. A., Ugolovnoe pravo RSFSR (Moscow, 1924)Google Scholar; Poznyshev, S. V., Uchebnik ugolovnogo prava (Moscow, 1923)Google Scholar; Trainin, A. N., Ugolovnoe pravo (Moscow, 1929).Google Scholar

42. See Ezhenedel'nik sovetskoi iustitsii, 1924, no. 15, p. 356; 1924, no. 22, p. 512; 1924, no. 28, p. 649.

43. The work of Kabonov, S. F., Bor'ba s ugolovnoi prestupnosfiu v derevne (Moscow, 1928)Google Scholar, is typical of this approach.

44. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” p. 124.

45. Berman, Soviet Criminal Law and Procedure, p. 25.

46. The publications of the Moscow center and the research centers in Minsk and Kharkov were affected.

47. See Utevskii, B, “Prestupnost’ i retsidiv,” in Sovremennaia prestupnost?, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1927)Google Scholar; D. P. Rodin, “Sotsial'nyi sostav” and N. Visherskii, “Professiia i prestupnost',” in ibid., vol. 2 (Moscow, 1930).

48. Gertsenzon, “Nekotorye voprosy”; and Gertsenzon, , “K metodike individual'no-sotsiologicheskogo izucheniia pravonarushitelei,” in Problemy prestupnosti, no. 2 (1927), pp. 136–63.Google Scholar

49. Isuchenie prestupnosti i penitentsiarnaia praktika, no. 3 (1930).

50. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” p. 124.

51. Shelley, Louise, “The 1929 Dispute on Soviet Criminology,” forthcoming in Soviet Union, 6, no. 1 (Spring 1979).Google Scholar

52. Grodzinskii, M. M., “Disput k voprosu ob izuchenii prestupnosti v SSSR,” Revoliutsiia prava, 1929, no. 3, pp. 48–78.Google Scholar

53. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” pp. 125-26; Shelley, “The 1929 Dispute on Soviet Criminology.”

54. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” p. 125.

55. Shelley, “The 1929 Dispute on Soviet Criminology.”

56. Grodzinskii, “Disput.”

57. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” p. 127.

58. Sovetskaia kriminologiia, p. 27.

59. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” pp. 127-28.

60. Ibid., pp. 128-29.

61. Ibid.

62. Il'ina, “Razvitie kriminologicheskikh issledovanii,” p. 263.

63. Ibid., pp. 263-54.

64. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” p. 129.

65. Shirvindt, E. G., ed., Klassovaia bor'ba i prestupnosf (Moscow, 1930), p. 100.Google Scholar

66. See the following journals: Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i revoliutsiia prava, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo, Sovetskaia iustitsiia, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnosf. 67. Frugarts, , “Rastraty kak osobaia forma klassovoi bor'by s nim organov iustitsii,” Sovetskaia iustitsiia, 1933, no. 15, p. 15.Google Scholar

68. Solomon, “Soviet Criminology,” p. 129.

69. Il'ina, “Razvitie kriminologicheskikh issledovanii,” p. 265.