Environmental Security as an Object of Criminal Law Protection

Purpose. it is customary to consider ensuring environmental safety within the framework of environmental law, as well as those branches of legislation that regulate industrial and economic activities (urban planning, agrarian, administrative, etc.). In fact, environmental safety is ensured not only by the establishment of regulatory requirements, compliance with which guarantees the preservation of the natural environment, but also by a system of state enforcement measures that are applied to a person who violates prohibitions or fails to comply with regulations. The purpose of the study is to determine the legal nature of environmental safety, which acts as an object of criminal law protection. Methodology: the research is based on the general scientific principles of historicism and social determinism, essential, complex, systemic, structural and functional approaches. The work used general scientific methods of cognition of complex social phenomena and processes — comparative historical and genetic, deduction and induction, groupings and comparisons. A combination of quantitative (surveys of the Russian population, statistical data analysis) and qualitative (case analysis, content analysis) methods of sociological research was used. In addition, special methods of mathematical statistics and logical-semantic analysis were used. Conclusions. Modern criminal law is designed to guarantee the state of protection of the natural environment and vital human interests from the possible negative effects of economic and other activities, natural and man-made emergencies, and their consequences, which are ensured, inter alia, through environmental protection and rational use of natural resources. To this end, the criminal law is endowed with a specific arsenal of means of criminal legal influence, including regulatory, protective, educational, and restorative. These means include criminalization and penalization of socially dangerous forms of violation of environmental regulations, reasonable de-penalization with priority of compensatory measures. However, these funds were not used effectively enough by the legislator. Scientific and practical relevance. The essence of environmental safety as a socio-legal phenomenon is determined, modern problems of its provision by criminal law means are identified, scientifically sound proposals for improving the criminal law mechanism of environmental safety protection are formulated.