NORMS AND PRACTICES OF THE CONTROL OVER CRIMINAL OFFENCES IN THE USSR: TENDENCIES OF THE “THAW”
Keywords:
crime control policies, social control, inclusion/exclusion, outsiders, public opinionAbstract
State policy towards asocial conduct, including breach of law and crime, had been evolving through Soviet history. Until the mid-1950s, the main vector was repressive, with the isolation of people from the society. Repressive practices, including a harsh penal code, sometimes served as a reaction to a real aggravation of the crime situation, for instance, after World War Two. However, more often the authorities and law enforcement institutions acted out of inertia, lacking experience of other methods and believing in the preventive effect of harsh measures. Against this background, the experiments of the early “Thaw” are especially interesting: the creation of new norms and practices of social control corresponded to the changing format of relations between the state and society, on the one hand, and the marginal groups, on the other. The turn in criminal policy took place after 1953 despite the spike of criminal activities. Considerable part of cases became depoliticized; emphasis shifted to the analysis of social causes of crime; the policy of isolating socially marginal groups gave way to attempts to incorporate them into “main” society. New trends required corresponding normative base, which was actively developed in that period (the work on new penal codes). This article considers the problem of criminality in the context of changing norms and practices of social control during the Thaw. This study is methodologically synthetic; it allows to combine the historiographical tradition of research of crime in the USSR and the analysis of crime in contemporary criminology, deviantology, and sociology.References
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