V. I.   Lenin

The Prosecution of Minors^[1]

Notes And Amendments to the Draft Decree

Written: Written March 4, 1920
Published: First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIV. Printed from the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 2nd English Printing, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, pages 182^b-183^a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2003). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
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1) The theory of delimitation is no good.

2) Courts and prisons are corrupting.

3) Who knows the psychology of children? The judges or expert opinion?

4) Special establishments?

5) Profiteers, etc.? Recidive?

1) Instruct the Commissariat for Justice by arrangement with the Commissariat for Public Health, the Commissariat   for Education and the Central Statistical Board to draw up forms of report for each case of juvenile delinquency.

2) Instruct the Commissariat for Education and the Commissariat for Public Health to step up activities in the organisation of medical and educational institutions for defective juveniles.

Instruct the Commissariat for Justice to exercise stricter supervision over the membership of the juvenile commissions and the way they fulfil their duties.

Notes

[1] The draft decree on the prosecution of minors introduced by the Commissariat for Education was discussed and endorsed with Lenin’s Amendments at the meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars on March 4, 1920. The decree was published in Izvestia No. 51 for March 6 under the heading: “Cases of Juveniles Accused of Socially Dangerous Acts”.