Nikitashenko, Irina I.
Kavkaz Forum. 2024. Issue 19.

Abstract:
The article, based on archival documents, examines the causes, forms and
types of juvenile crime in the early 1920-s in the cities of Stavropol and Terek. The
relevance of the study is determined by the need to study and borrow the positive
experience of the Soviet police in the first decades of Soviet power. The problem of
homelessness and neglect of children and adolescents, juvenile crime, continues
to be topical today. The practical significance of the publication is expressed in
the possibility of using the research results in the practice of juvenile affairs units,
as well as in the historical reconstruction of the history of the Soviet police, which
is far from complete today. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the very
formulation of the problem of the history of juvenile crime - its origins, methods
of prevention and elimination, social rehabilitation of children and adolescents,
which was studied during the historical period of the greatest social upheavals –
the period of the 1920-s. The results of the study indicate that problems of juvenile
crime appear when, due to various circumstances – war, famine, devastation,
immoral lifestyle, etc. – children and adolescents are not involved in normal family
and other social relationships. Homelessness and neglect give rise to vagrancy,
and then to juvenile crime. Theft, prostitution, hooliganism – crimes generated by
“social evil” – are committed by children who are accustomed to leading an asocial
lifestyle, left orphans or simply without proper parental control. Used by the Soviet
government in the 1920-1930-s. measures to combat juvenile delinquents did
not always produce results. There were only a few positive examples, such as the
Republic of SHKID. And the usual measures to place street children in orphanages
were ineffective. Poor material support for orphanages, indifference and lack of
attention to children, and treatment of children as hardened, incorrigible criminals
gave rise to opposition. Juvenile offenders made more and more escapes from
such correctional and educational institutions, taking with them the property
issued to them.

Keywords: the first years of Soviet power, NEP, homelessness, neglect, juvenile crime.

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