Law of July 13, 1913: Organizational and Legal Aspects of Forming the Prison Staff Training System in Tsarist Russia
Shurukhnov N.G. Law of July 13, 1913: organizational and legal aspects of forming the prison staff training system in Tsarist Russia. Penitentiary Science, 2025, vol. 19, no. 2 (70), pp. 125–130. doi 10.46741/2686- 9764.2025.70.2.002.
The article discusses various approaches to improving the level of professional training of prison guards in tsarist Russia, including those who guarded female convicts. The role of heads of the Main Prison Administration in initiating professional training of prison employees is noted, the specifics of activities in this area and the complexity of solving issues requiring diverse knowledge are described. Purpose: to show the origins of professional penitentiary education, the role of the law of July 13, 1913 (“On the establishment of the school to train candidates for the positions of a senior prison warden in Saint Petersburg and the school to train candidates for the positions of a female prison warden in Moscow”), to disclose its legal provisions fixing the competence of the Saint Petersburg School for the Training of Senior Prison Female Wardens and the Moscow School for the Training of Female Wardens. An order of enrollment in schools, a legal status of students, financial support for the educational process, teachers, students, and their official position after training are considered. The article uses methods of comparative analysis, analogy, idealization, generalization, formalization, and concretization. Results: the article reveals approaches to the stages of professional training of prison employees and describes achievements of individual scientists (I.F. Foinitskii, N.F. Luchinskii) and heads of the Main Prison Administration of Tsarist Russia (M.N. Galkin-Vraskoi, S.S. Khrulev) in proving the importance of effective performance of penitentiary institutions. Conclusions: the law of July 13, 1913 on the establishment of schools in Saint Petersburg to train candidates for the positions of a senior prison warden and in Moscow to train candidates for the positions of a female prison warden in the period of September 1, 1913 to December 31, 1915 is the first law that elevated penitentiary education to the rank of the state.
Keywords: Main Prison Administration; Saint Petersburg; Moscow; school; prison guards; training.
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