The article investigates the process of development of the system of punishments applied without isolation from society in the Russian criminal law during the period from the 9th century till 1917. On the basis of the analysis of the most important written sources of law, the author concludes that deprivation of liberty had not been applied as a type of criminal punishment until the 16th century. The type of punishment under consideration had the features of an ecclesiastical and repentant penalty. The leading role in the system of punishment was assigned to various types of fines, monetary penalties, mutilation (maiming) penalties and death penalty. Sentences alternative to deprivation of liberty were commonly used during the reign of Peter the Great for the purpose of using convicts in state-building facilities. The tendency to punish minor crimes by imposing monetary penalties or public works instead of imprisonment was initiated during the reign of Catherine the Second and was finally outlined by the middle of the 19th century. Until 1917, types of punishment that did not envisaged isolation from society prevailed in the Russian system of criminal penalties.