History of the formation and development of the preventive measure «detention» in criminal proceedings (imperial period).

The article examines the history of formation and development of the preventive measure in the form of detention (arrest) in the criminal procedure of the imperial period. The author analyzes the legal framework which regulated the use of arrest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and also identifies the key trends in the legal regulation of the preventive measures institute. The author establishes that the institution of preventive measures throughout the entire imperial period developed under the dominance of the inquisitorial model of justice, the authoritarian logic of criminal policy and the priority of repressive approaches to crime investigation. The 1649 Code of Conciliar Laws marked the beginning of the legislative formalization of detention as a universal way to ensure the participation of a suspect in an investigation, without providing for a clear distinction between administrative and criminal procedural detention and arrest. During the period of absolutism, arrest became not only the main, but in fact the only instrument of pre-trial isolation of the accused, which contributed to massive abuses by administrative and police authorities. Despite the reforms initiated by Catherine II and Alexander I, detention continued to be the dominant and often arbitrarily applied preventive measure. The efforts made to address this problem were generally declarative in nature and were not accompanied by effective mechanisms for their implementation andcontrol. The purpose of detention in such conditions was not to ensure a person’s appearance in court or to prevent possible evasion of the police, but rather to create psychologically and physically exhausting conditions that would encourage a person to admit guilt. The Statute of Criminal Procedure of 1864 was a significant step forward in the procedural regulation of the application of preventive measures, in the establishment of the principles of adversarial criminal proceedings, personal inviolability, etc. However, even within its limits, detention remained excessively centralized and restrictive of human rights. The measure retained the features of an instrument of pressure on the accused (suspect), rather than being an exclusively justice-oriented tool.