Punishment, Administrative

one of the measures of state action with respect to persons who have committed administrative offenses. In the USSR administrative punishments are intended to educate citizens, officials of the state apparatus, and workers in public organizations in a spirit of respect for the rules of life in socialist society and of observance of state discipline and legality. A system of administrative punishments has been established by law, and the conditions and procedures for applying them have been determined. The system includes a warning (public censure), fine, correctional tasks, confiscation of property, arrest, and temporary deprivation of some special rights.

A warning (public censure) is most often administered to persons who did not carry out the rules established as mandatory by decisions of local agencies of state power. An administrative fine is a financial penalty imposed on citizens and officials who have committed an offense. An administrative fine is also imposed for hooliganism.

Correctional tasks consist of the deduction of up to 20 percent of the offender’s monthly wage for the state revenue for a term determined by the judge. Correctional tasks are imposed for malicious, unlawful disobedience of a lawful order of a policeman or people’s guard carrying out his duties to maintain public order, as well as for petty hooliganism. As a rule, correctional tasks are imposed for up to one month and for one to two months for petty hooliganism.

Confiscation through administrative procedure consists of the compulsory taking without compensation of objects of petty speculation and property that cannot legally be mailed or transported for the use of the state. Confiscation may also apply to radio and transmission devices made without appropriate permission; contraband; implements for illegal fishing, hunting of sea animals, or illegal felling of timber, and firearms and silent weapons that are kept or used illegally.

Arrest for up to 15 days is applied as a measure of administrative punishment on the decision of a people’s judge that a person is guilty of petty hooliganism, petty speculation, or malicious disobedience of a lawful order of a policeman or people’s guard. Persons subject to administrative arrest are kept in places of detention established by the agencies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Temporary deprivation of certain special rights consists of prohibition to engage in some activity or use some kind of property. For instance, a citizen may be deprived of the right to drive an automobile for gross or repeated violation of the rules of traffic safety, for driving an automobile while intoxicated, or for using motor vehicles for personal profit. A citizen may also be deprived of the right to hunt, engage in handicraft trade, or rent a plot of land if the lease is not used according to its express purpose.