Inefficiency as a basic property of the current criminal punishment

Introduction. The criminal policy of the state should ensure the rule of law and the safety of the population. At the same time, today the criminal and penal enforcement legislation has low preventive efficiency due to serious systemic defects associated with a high degree of instability. The purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of existing criminal penalties and their restorative justice potential. Methods. The methodological framework for the research is a set of methods of scientific cognition, primarily sociological, dogmatic and formal-logical methods. Results. The punitive policy of the state not only fails to achieve the goal of crime prevention, but also provokes its growth. The fragmentation and disorder of criminal punishments, which do not take intoaccount modern requirements for the procedure for applying corrective measures to convicts, call into question the veryexistence of criminal policy. The construct of the “ladder of punishments” as the basis of the criminal-legal sphere of the state activity should be based on rationalism and logic capable of protecting citizens and society from criminal encroachments and crime in general. Conclusions. A rational approach to punishment based on modern ideas about the law and the values protected by it, taking into account the scientifically-based arguments of criminologists, should be associated not with revenge on the criminal, masked by the terms “punishment”, “retribution”, and “restoration of social justice”, but with the restoration of the violated rights of the victim and the prevention of new crimes.