Legal Regulation of Militia Activities in Implementing State Policy in the Sphere of Criminal Punishments Enforcement in the Ukrainian SSR in the mid-1960s

Abstract

The article examines the main aspects of legal regulation of the activities of the militia of the Ukrainian SSR in implementing correctional labour policy in the mid-1960s. The correctional labour policy during the Soviet period, influenced by the remnants of totalitarianism, was characterised by repression and significant restrictions on individual rights. Correctional labour law was essentially ideological and inhumane, and by the end of the 1960s, it lagged behind the needs of the time and the requirements of real state and public counteraction to crime. The system of punishment was characterised by excessive centralisation, secrecy, disregard for human rights and harsh treatment of convicts. The article emphasises that historical experience shows that the effective rehabilitation and re-education of convicts, as well as an overall reduction in crime, can only be achieved by combining social needs with state interests, which must be based on those needs. It shows how the 1967 amnesty was carried out in the republic. To organise it, the Ministry of Public Order of the Ukrainian SSR held a republican meeting of heads of regional correctional labour institutions, employees of special departments, heads of public order management departments and commandants of special commandant’s offices. The study examines how the enforcement of punishments in the form of correctional labour without deprivation of liberty was regulated, how the militia exercised administrative supervision over persons released from places of deprivation of liberty, and what was the procedure for the compulsory treatment of mentally ill persons. It is noted that during the guarding and escorting of arrested persons, militia often violated the law, which led to serious consequences, including fatalities.