On June 7-8, 2024, the annual international scientific and practical conference «Criminal legislation: yesterday, today, tomorrow» was held at the St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The participants focused on current issues of the state of criminal legislation, the practice of its application and the science of criminal law. The conference was attended by 86 representatives of 34 scientific and educational organizations and five structural divisions of executive authorities, including 25 doctors of science, 45 candidates of science, six employees of territorial bodies of internal affairs of the Russian Federation. The plenary session discussed issues related to the scale of criminal policy, criminal-legal counteraction to crimes in the sphere of high technologies and terrorist nature, considered the directions of reforming the norms regulating responsibility for property crimes, as well as criminal and criminal-procedural legislation taking into account the adoption of the Federal Law «On probation in the Russian Federation», raised criminological issues related to the formation of a new sub-sector – military criminology, analyzed approaches to determining the time periods of studying modern crime. During the work of the sections, problematic aspects of the application of the norms of the General and Special Parts of Criminal Law were discussed, related, in particular, to the purposes of punishment, conditions for exemption from criminal liability and from punishment, errors in the qualification of guilt in cases of violation of safety rules during construction or other work, problems of criminal liability for desecration of symbols of military glory of Russia. Directions for improving criminal legislation and law enforcement practice were presented.