The article presents the results of the study of personal projections in assessing the limits of punishment humanization in the practice of criminal justice. The topic relevance is determined by the discussions held in various social institutions in recent years. Public opinion is a particularly important component of such discussions (We understand public opinion as the opinion of citizens who are the direct subjects of determining the measure of punishment). It is necessary to note the degree of scientific novelty of the proposed study. The problems of psychological justification of the norms, measures and limits of criminal punishment, the perception of its mechanisms, forms of influence and subjective meanings are poorly studied both in the framework of general and legal psychology. The authors attempt to study the personal characteristics of respondents who assess the limits of punishment humanization in criminal proceedings, depending on the characteristics of regional living conditions. For the study the authors have chosen the areas of the Arctic North, these areas are of particular interest for research owing to its climatic, ethno-cultural, socio-economic identity, reflected in the formation and implementation (projections) of personal characteristics. The study involved respondents from the Arctic North: Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, KhantyMansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra. The study sample was represented by four groups of respondents, divided by age and gender. The study covers three projections of personality, emotional, intellectual and intuitive. For this, a well-adapted and sufficiently verified methodological toolkit was selected. In accordance with the purpose of the study, we determined the subjective assessment of the respondents about the degree of criminal punishment for various types of crimes. The range of assessment was in the range of values "humanization - dehumanization". The result of the study was the conclusion that the personal projection in assessing the limits of criminal punishment humanization for the inhabitants of the Arctic North has a number of specific features. For example, respondents with an intellectual projection of personality reject the idea of humanizing criminal punishment. Subjective assessments of actual punishment are perceived by them as underestimated, not meeting their expectations. The assessments of respondents with emotional personality projection are considered to be the most underestimated in the field of environmental crimes. The group of respondents with an intuitive personal projection determines the most smoothed multidirectional subjective assessments. The possibility of humanizing criminal punishment is currently rejected by all respondents in the sample under study. Respondents of all groups with different personal projections (male and female samples) assess the existing level of criminal punishment as insufficiently effective, as not meeting their personal expectations.

In 2020, the implementation of the 10-year concept for the development of the penal system, aimed at the humanization of prisoner welfare, was ended. The article examines the political result of a closely related reform – the gradual humanization of the Siberian prison in the 19th - early 20th century. The authors believe that the outcome of the prison reform in Russia, in contrast to Europe, was characterized by a weakening of the state power. Given the poverty of the Russian people, their disenfranchisement and unemployment, the material conditions in the reformed prisons were often better than those of law-abiding citizens at liberty. On the one hand, this hindered the reduction of crime rates, but, on the other hand, caused misunderstanding in Russian society, exacerbated the sense of injustice and projected it onto the state authorities.

The article examines the peculiarities of the personality psycho-type of the indigenous peoples of the North, living in the cities of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Arctic) and the territory of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, related to the regions of the Far North. The authors’ attention is drawn to the psychological characteristics that determine the illegal behavior of the indigenous popu-lation. The natural-climatic conditions of the Russian North, its Arctic zone, is very specific and deter¬mines a number of features in the psychological portrait of the personality. The life hood of the inheri-tors and practitioners of traditional culture, taken place in the conditions of an “impoverished living environment,” is distinguished by a specific way of life and perceptions, activities and social stratifica-tions, therefore, imposes a number of conditions and restrictions revealed in the psychological foun-dations of behavior and its law-oriented norms. The same characteristics remain dominant in the transition to an urban environment.

Historical experience of education by the means of books, known as culture of reading, started being weakened in “the age of Internet”. Novelty of the article is in the described process of impact of the book on criminals in the territory of Western Siberia considered through the cultural, historical and psychological aspects. With the use of previously unknown archival materials there are revealed the cure methods of the condemned by using the book, and the relationship to the prison literature of the political prisoners. The personality of prisoners differed by a set of moral qualities, but almost all of them were ready to the perception of people around and themselves through the literature. Illiteracy was the main obstacle in education of the condemned, but the administration of prisons opened prison schools and organized reading literature aloud. The first prison libraries appeared in the 1860-ies and were replenished generally at the expense of philanthropists. F.M. Dostoyevsky’s novels “Crime and Punishment” and “Notes from the Dead House”, fairy tales and poems by A.S. Pushkin were the most popular books: they filled life with romanticism and were a compensation factor. Political prisoners denied any educational methods, preferring to read revolutionary literature. It is impossible to track extent of impact of book on the process of correction of criminals, but it is possible to claim that libraries started forming the atmosphere of book which is the most important condition of education in prisons, and is a necessary prerequisite for correction of a convicted person.

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