How much crime is enough?: Criminology in Late Imperial Russia, 1905-1914
Z. Ronald Bialkowski

The revolution of 1905 caused a major upheaval within the narrow field of Russian criminology. The fragile partnership between the autocratic regime and liberal criminologists evaporated as the Russian Group of the International Union of Criminal Law joined numerous other professional associations in widespread agitation for civil liberty, representative government, and the autonomy of law. In the aftermath of the 1905 revolution, the Russian Group confronted an astronomical rise in the crime rate and the autocracy's ready willingness to overturn newly gained civil liberties in the interest of public order. Moreover, the revolution gave impetus to a fledging group of younger socialist criminologists implacably critical of the regime and prepared to inject politics into "professional" jurisprudence.

This paper will probe the ways in which the revolutionary politics and ideological dispute from 1905-1914 influenced the development of Russian criminology. It will argue that the impact of socialist thought and the police practices of Russia's autocratic regime transformed the criminological project from one concerned with the prevention of crime into a quest to ascertain how much and what type of crime was beneficial for society. In its debates on hooliganism, political crime, and social defense, the Russian Group severely criticized the autocracy for its reactionary police laws while at the same time guiding bills on parole, workhouses, and juvenile reform through the fractious State Duma. The paper will attempt to ascertain whether the divided loyalty of criminologists between the burgeoning labor movement and the forces public order proved to be inimical to liberal project of a healthy and independent civil society.