punishment

a measure of coercion applied by a court in the name of the state as a penalty for commission of a crime.

The idea of punishment arose in ancient times. It did not exist in preclass society as a means of state coercion but operated instead on the principle of the blood feud, that is, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Forced labor, one of the earliest types of punishment, appeared in slaveholding society. With the spread of Christianity came the idea that punishment led to atonement for sins, a concept that took its first legal form in canon law. In the 18th century this idea became fixed in criminal laws and codes. The primary purpose of punishment was considered to be deterrence. Measures of punishment were accordingly extremely cruel and included the death penalty, mutilation, and corporal punishment.

After the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, bourgeois ideologists advanced the proposition that the purpose of punishment was the safety of society. Yet punishment in bourgeois criminal law continued above all to be a means of vengeance. This was shown in the establishment of various prison systems that were intended to violate the human dignity of those confined and cause them moral and physical suffering. The repressive nature of punishment under bourgeois criminal law was revealed in its harshest form during the period of fascism in Germany and Italy, where punishment operated as a device of terror.

In the capitalist states during the 19th and 20th centuries, the nature of punishment has changed somewhat. The corrective function of punishment has been proposed in abstract form and some liberalization of prison conditions has taken place. Types of confinement in which punishment is combined with education, with study of the personality of the prisoner, and with psychotherapy have been introduced, particularly for juvenile offenders. Systems of “noninstitutional” custody, which do not include imprisonment, have been implemented. All these innovations are linked to the search for ways to combat the steady growth of crime in capitalist society, and are a result of the struggle of the working people in the capitalist countries for democratization of the criminal justice system. In principle, however, such measures cannot change the role and significance of punishment as a means of vengeance and suppression of the personality.

In the USSR, the content and purposes of punishment are set down in Article 20 of the Basic Principles of Criminal Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics and in Articles One and Two of the Basic Principles of Corrective Labor Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics. Among the purposes of punishment are correction and reeducation of convicted offenders, prevention of further crimes they might commit (specific or special prevention), and prevention of crimes by other persons (general prevention). The principal means of correction and reeducation include the conditions under which the punishment is served, participation by convicted offenders in socially useful labor, political education, and general educational and vocational-technical training. The social significance of punishment lies in its function within the complex set of social measures designed to prevent crime.

The punishment provided by law for a given crime can be imposed on guilty persons only on the sentence of a court. The Basic Principles of Criminal Legislation establishes certain rules for the imposition of punishment, which are primarily intended to affirm general principles for selecting punishment. From among the sanctions available under the law, the court selects the type and amount of punishment that match the crime committed. Here the court considers the nature and degree of social danger inherent in the crime committed, the character of the offender, and any circumstances of the case that mitigate or aggravate criminal accountability. Soviet criminal law ensures individualization of punishment, that is, selection of precisely that measure of punishment that is sufficient to ensure that the goals of punishment are achieved, particularly the correction and reeducation of the criminal. The availability of a variety of punishments is an essential condition for individualizing punishment.

The Basic Principles of Criminal Legislation contain a definitive list of available measures of punishment. These include deprivation of freedom (confinement), exile (to a certain place), banishment (from a certain place), corrective labor without deprivation of freedom, loss of the right to occupy certain positions or to engage in certain activities, fines, public reprimand, confiscation of property, and loss of military or other special rank. Active-duty servicemen may also be assigned to a disciplinary battalion to serve their punishment. The criminal codes of the Union republics also provide such punishments as dismissal from a position held, imposition of an obligation to compensate for damages criminally caused, and loss of parental rights.

All measures of punishment are divided into primary and supplementary, with the latter used to amplify the former. Deprivation of freedom, corrective labor without deprivation of freedom, public reprimand, and assignment to a disciplinary battalion are considered primary punishments. Exile, banishment, loss of the right to occupy certain positions or engage in certain activities, fines, dismissal from a position, and imposition of the obligation to compensate damages may be imposed as either primary or supplementary punishments. Confiscation of property, loss of military or special rank, and (in the criminal codes of most of the Union republics) loss of parental rights can only be supplementary punishments. A court that imposes a supplementary punishment in addition to a primary one does so in order to increase the punishment.

The supreme form of punishment, namely, the death penalty, is not part of the general system of punishment. The law considers the death penalty to be an extraordinary measure—pending its complete abolition in the future, it is to be used on a temporary basis, and only in cases specially provided by law.

Soviet law proceeds from the presumption that punishment is employed only for actual crimes and only in those cases where other measures of influence on violators of the law have been inadequate.