The reasonableness of the penalty of deprivation of liberty

Introduction: the article examines the issue of effective application of punishment in the form of deprivation of liberty in a reasonable combination of justice and humanism. Materials and Methods: the study was based on official statistical indicators of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia of the judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. When preparing the article, comparative legal and documentary methods were used, which allowed analyze and generalize theoretical and empirical issues, formulating conclusions and proposals. Results: the article analyzed the prerequisites and state of the correlation between justice and humanism in the legislative consolidation and application of punishment in the form of deprivation of liberty, outlines priority areas for reasonable differentiation of legal regulation and application in the field under consideration. Discussion and Conclusions: despite the fact that modern criminal legislation is being actively reformed in the most relevant areas, these changes do not sufficiently meet the needs of law enforcement practice, which needs reasonable restrictions on the scope of discretion and specification of the content of the court's discretionary powers to maintain a balance of justice and humanity in the field of state coercion.