Introduction. The category of convicted girls is not numerous. According to specialists and practitioners, it is one of the most difficult groups in terms of educational training. This fact was underlined in the pre-revolutionary period when organizing the first specialized institutions for this category of people. Even despite the insignificant number of educational and correctional institutions, Russia had a fairly rich experience of educational work with delinquent girls, which was based both on advanced theoretical and practical ideas of organizing the re-education of juvenile offenders abroad and national psychological and pedagogical innovations.
The purpose of the article is to reveal pre-revolutionary experience (based on of archival materials) of organizing educational work in the first specialized institutions for beggars, vagrants, as well as young female convicts.
Methodology, methods and techniques. General scientific research methods aimed at collecting, analyzing, systematizing and generalizing data, in particular, the analysis of literary sources directly related to the subject of the study, the study of archival materials were used. The research methodology is based on the characteristics of deviant and delinquent behavior of minors.
Results. The first orphanage was opened in 1873. There were four of them in Russia, and only the Bolshevsky (Yakovlevsky) orphanage was fully specialized. Two foreign types of re-education of juvenile delinquents were effectively combined in the work with female inmates: the family approach to the organization of the life of inmates and the splitting of inmates into classes and grades according to their achievements in education and in terms of their behavior. In Russia, the key goal of educational work in orphanages was spiritual and moral upbringing of children, which was implemented through school education, labour and religion. The effectiveness of educational work was based on classification of female trainees into groups according to different
criteria (age, behavioral and character features, progress in studies and work) and motivation to reform the orphanages (monetary rewards, passing from lower to higher groups with better living conditions in the centre, early release from the orphanage). The compulsory vocational training was aimed at helping the girls to find employment after leaving the orphanage. The idea of patronage was developed and implemented, based both on the knowledge of the girls’ individual and psychological characteristics and the degree of rehabilitation by the moment of their leaving the orphanage.
Scientific novelty. The findings broaden the understanding of educational work with deviant girls in the pre-revolutionary period of Russia.
Practical significance. The results can be used in the course of training of cadets of educational institutions of higher education of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.
