Criminal liability for escape from places of imprisonment, evasion from serving a punishment in correctional facilities: the historical aspect
The article presents the results of a retrospective study of criminal legislation that establishes liability for escaping from places of imprisonment as well as for evading punishment in the form of imprisonment. Legal grounds for criminal prosecution for escape and qualifying signs of the corpus delicti of this type of crime, criminalization and decriminalization of escapes are analyzed taking into account the state’s criminal policy. A study of the development of criminal legislation that establishes responsibility for escape, evasion from serving a sentence of imprisonment, allows us to draw some conclusions: 1) the first mention of imprisonment is found in the Law Code of 1550, and the criminal liability for escape from places of imprisonment was first provided for in the Code of 1845 and in the process of development of criminal legislation underwent changes: the degree of social danger of escape varied in a different way, which entailed changes in his criminal -law evaluation (from the awarding the death penalty for the escape up to cancel criminal responsibility for the act replacing it with the disciplinary liability, and then again return to the criminal liability), increased the number of qualifying escape signs changed signs of the perpetrator; 2) the norm establishing the criminal liability for evasion from serving the imprisonment first appeared in 1977. The subjects of this crime were only convicts held in correctional labor colonies of general and strict regimes, coloniessettlements of all kinds, educational-labor colonies (according to 16 years of age), as well as in pre-trial detention centers and prisons, if they were left there with their consent for work on maintenance, who did not return from a short-term exit. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 1997 extends the signs of the subject of this crime; it is a person sentenced to imprisonment, who is allowed to travel outside the place of imprisonment or a respite of the sentence.
Keywords: escape from places of imprisonment; evasion from serving punishment; subject of crime; criminal legislation; imprisonment; criminal liability; qualifying signs of crime.
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