This article is devoted to the scientific project developed in Russia on serving criminal sentences in the form of deprivation of liberty of convicted persons for the commission of economic crimes in the sphere of entrepreneurship and (or) official crimes. The article analyses the results of the sociological study on the problem of differentiation of serving deprivation of liberty by convicted persons for the specified types of crimes, which were carried out by the Scientific Educational Center “Problems of criminal-executive law” named after Yu. M. Tkachevsky of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. The existing positions in Russia on the punishment of economic and official criminals are considered, the assessment of their effectiveness was given. It was drawn the conclusion that the most realistic approach to solving the problem should be recognized the detention of convicted persons for economic and official crimes separately from other categories of convicted persons, namely in separate correctional colonies.