«Digital» property crimes: issues of criminalization and legislative regulation

This article shows that an important role in the legal protection of the digital economy is played by modern criminal law, which is designed to form a system of legal mechanisms to ensure the protection of society from «digital» property crimes. The new mechanism of criminal legal protection should ensure effective counteraction to both real and potential criminal threats in the emerging digital reality. It is proved that in the context of digitalization, there is a need for a radical reform of Chapter 21 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Alternative directions for improving the criminal law provisions on liability for crimes against property are proposed. One of the author's options is to build new separate structures of property crimes – property abuses and other violations in the field of information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet. Another is the allocation of an independent group of property crimes in the field of the digital economy within the framework of Chapter 21 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and accordingly the division of the chapter into two groups: «property crimes against property» (theft of other people's property, illegal possession of a vehicle, destruction and damage to other people's property) and «crimes against property in the field of information and telecommunications networks».