In the Gulag's Shadow: Producing, Consuming and Perceiving Prisons in the Former Soviet Union

苏联古拉格是世界历史上刑法权力最令人敬畏的表现之一。然而，在苏联解体30年后，对前苏联惩罚的研究有限。虽然犯罪学作为一门学科正在北美和西欧蓬勃发展，但在前苏联，对古拉格大陆规模的惩罚制度的不同监禁率和社会文化遗产尚未进行系统研究。然而，该区域提出了一些谜题，涉及到我们对刑事政策、惩罚文化和社会态度的更广泛理解。我们将在下面描述这些谜题。为了探索它们，我们选择比较俄罗斯和哈萨克斯坦-前苏联最大的两个国家，在苏联时期拥有最多的古拉格遗址。首先，我们如何绘制和解释后苏联地区监狱比率和条件的变化？我们怎么能理解为什么自2000年以来，与所有预测相反，前苏联各地的许多监狱人数都在下降？什么政治经济因素可能会解释这一点？俄罗斯和哈萨克斯坦的政策制定者是如何构建惩罚性政策的？是什么影响了他们的偏好？它可能会告诉我们什么关于驱动因素，可以解释在其他情况下的去龋齿？其次，俄罗斯人和哈萨克人对国家批准的惩罚有何看法？许多政治学家认为，俄罗斯强势领导人和威权主义的崛起是政治文化的结果。在这一观点上，俄罗斯的态度--由历史、地理和文化形成--偏爱某些不民主的治理形式。然而，尽管古拉格监狱的规模和规模如此之大，但我们对俄罗斯人或哈萨克人如何看待惩罚，它的可预测性和严重性，以及这如何调解公民与他们的国家的关系，以及当今公民对监狱的期望知之甚少。第三，在电视节目、电影、歌曲和监狱博物馆等产品中，惩罚是如何从文化上构建的？俄罗斯人和哈萨克人是如何消费这些产品的，通过它们传达了什么意思？理论家们一直在争论惩罚在何种程度上也是一种文化实践。尽管古拉格留下的遗产之一是当今流行起来的视觉和音乐文化，但在前苏联还没有对此进行系统的研究，更不用说那里出现的各种监狱博物馆了。这是一个重要的问题，因为公民如何监督监狱和惩罚通常是从远处进行的，可以帮助维持权力体系。在调查这些问题时，本研究项目旨在通过国家政策、社会态度和文化形式对俄罗斯和哈萨克斯坦的惩罚结构进行独特而深入的研究。该项目使用了来自不同学科的混合方法。这些方法包括社会调查、对政策制定者的采访、文献分析和基于案头的统计分析，以及在博物馆遗址的现场文化探索和与文化消费者的互动。研究涉及惩罚的性质、其在社会、文化和经济中的根深蒂固以及这对监狱率和监狱条件的影响等重要主题。该项目影响很大，产生了关于以下方面的独特数据：监狱人口趋势、关于刑罚监督的纪录片、关于对惩罚的态度的大型调查数据库以及供其他人使用和分析的重点群体。该项目与一些主要利益攸关方合作，他们希望更好地了解当今俄罗斯和哈萨克斯坦监狱的用途和意义。这些机构包括哈萨克斯坦总检察长办公室等政府机构、后苏联地区的国家非政府组织以及欧洲委员会等国际组织。

The Soviet Gulag was one of the most awesome expressions of penal power in world history. Yet, thirty years after the end of the Soviet Union research into punishment in the former Soviet Union is limited. Whereas criminology as a discipline is burgeoning in North America and Western Europe, in the former Soviet Union varying incarceration rates and the social and cultural legacies of the Gulag's continent-sized system of punishment has not been systematically studied. Yet, the region presents a number of puzzles that touch on our wider understanding of penal policy, cultures of punishment and societal attitudes. We describe these puzzles below. To explore them, we have chosen to compare Russia and Kazakhstan - the two biggest countries in the former Soviet Union that held the most Gulag sites during the Soviet period.Firstly, how do we map and explain change in prison rates and conditions across the post Soviet region? How can we understand why, since the year 2000 and against all predictions, many prison populations across the former Soviet Union have gone into decline? What political economic factors might explain this? How did policy makers in Russia and Kazakhstan go about constructing a penal policy and what shaped their preferences? What might it tell us about the driving factors that can explain decarceration in other contexts? Secondly, what do Russians and Kazakhs think about state-sanctioned punishment? Many political scientists believe that the rise of strong leaders and authoritarianism in Russia is a result of political culture. On this view, Russian attitudes - forged by history, geography and culture - favour particular undemocratic governance forms. Yet, despite the size and scale of the Gulag we know very little about how Russians or Kazakhs think about punishment, its predictability and severity, and how this mediates the relationship of citizens with their states and what citizens want from prisons today.Thirdly, how is punishment constructed culturally in products such as TV shows, films, songs and prison museums? How do Russians and Kazakhs consume these products and what meanings are conveyed through them? Theorists have debated the ways in which punishment is also a cultural practice. Despite the fact that one of the legacies of the Gulag has been a visual and musical culture that has become popularized in the present day, there has been no systematic study of this in the former Soviet Union, still less on the various prison museums that have emerged there. This is an important question as how citizens spectate on prisons and punishment often from afar can help to maintain a system of power. In investigating these questions, this research project aims to produce a unique, in depth study of the construction of punishment through state policy, societal attitudes and cultural forms in Russia and Kazakhstan. The project utilizes mixed methodologies taken from across academic disciplines. The methods include a social survey, interviews with policy makers, documentary analysis and desk-based statistical analysis as well as in situ cultural exploration at museum sites and interactions with cultural consumers.The research speaks to important topics about the nature of punishment, its embeddedness in society, culture and the economy and how this impacts upon prison rates and prison conditions. The project is high impact, generating unique data on: prison population trends, a documentary film on penal spectatorship, a large survey database on attitudes to punishment and focus groups for others to use and analyse. The project works with a number of key stakeholders who wish to better understand the use and meaning of prison in Russia and Kazakhstan today. These include government bodies such as the general prosecutor's office of Kazakhstan, national NGOs in the post-Soviet region, and international organizations such as the Council of Europe.