Gaps in Penitentiary Policy and Issues of Criminalization of the Asian part of Russia in the Political and Legal Ideology of Siberian Regionalists in the second half of the 19th century

Within the framework of this study, an attempt is made to reconstruct the political and legal views of the Siberian regionalists G.N. Potanin and N.M.Yadrintsev.The ideological legacy of democratic regionalists is emphasized on the problem of negative factors in the social life of pre-revolutionary Siberia through the growth of crime in the region and short-sighted penitentiary policy.Based on the hermeneutic analysis of published sources -journalistic and scientifically significant articles of political and legal content, as well as books by famous Siberians, the determinants of social ill-being in the Asian part of the Russian Empire are identified, such as a constant increase in crime, robberies, mass hard labor and exile, vagrancy.It is shown that in the political and legal thought of the leaders of the regionalist movement it was noted that the issue of punishment in the history of mankind from the beginning of the centuries to the modern period of development of the state and law constitutes that fatal, global issue that has not been positively resolved either by human practice or by the theory of legal science.The authors note that the thinkers believed that the system of penalties in laws and regulations in most countries is very similar.They analyzed mainly codified acts of European countries.Textual analysis clearly demonstrated to the writers practically identical forms of criminal-legal influence from the death penalty of exile to corporal punitive effects.The authors come to the conclusion that the humanistic political and legal thought of N.M.Yadrintsev and G.N. Potanin was characterized by the methodology of quantitative and statistical analysis, which in turn, in the knowledge of the social practices of the Siberian region, clearly and convincingly showed the detrimental impact of the miscalculations of the penal colonization of the region on its social development.Also, as a result of the work done, it is noted that, according to the legal views of regional thinkers, the criminalization of the population, the growth of crime, countless thefts, the poverty of the lower strata of the population and social insecurity have long been faithful companions of the Siberian "melting pot".