Prikazy Obshchestvennogo Prizreniia

(Central Administrative Offices for Community Service), provincial administrative departments established in Russia by the administrative reform of 1775. They had six members, two from each of the three province soslovie (legal group) courts, and were headed by chairmen appointed by the government.

The Prikazy Obshchestvennogo Prizreniia administered local schools, hospitals, almshouses, orphanages, and some prison establishments—the workhouses and smiritel’nye prisons (prisons for minor offenders)—where vagabonds and beggars were imprisoned and where landowners could send rebellious serfs. For philanthropic purposes, these departments also administered funds received from the government and from individuals. They were abolished as a result of the bourgeois reforms of the 1860’s and 1870’s.