Criminal liability of minors: main stages in the historical development of Russian legislation

Abstract

Due to their psychophysiology, minors need special protection, including that by penal law. However, it took long before this approach paved its legal way. The norms aimed at protecting children and adolescents from being involved in actions posing danger to their lives appeared in domestic legislation with the adoption of the Code on Penal and Correctional Punishments in 1845 and were not initially separated from the norms designed to protect health and morality of minors. Of course, Russia had previously taken measures for legal protection of minors. The origins of activities to work with children negatively influenced by adults go back to Old Russia, when some attempts were made to “correct and re-educate morally corrupted children.” However, all those measures concerned primarily orphans. With the emerging Russian statehood took care about orphans, their upbringing and re-education. The first state institutions for orphans appeared during the reign of Ivan Grozny (the Terrible).