Abstract: The subject of this research is the federal and regional legislation that regulate preventive activity of law enforcement agencies, monographic studies of the leading Russian criminologists, as well as scientific publications discussing the concept, structure and content of preventive law. The object of this research is social relations formed in the process of implementation of norms that regulate the activity on crime prevention. The goal consists in examination of the content of preventive law for the explicating the detailed structure of this branch of legislation. This article is first within the national criminology to propose an original perspective on the preventive law as an independent branch of legislation. Based on the analysis of normative sources regulating the activity in the area of prevention of offences, the author determines the criteria for their classification:  1) by legal force, 2) by territorial scope of actions, 3) by subject of legal regulation, 4) depending on the role in legal regulation. The conclusion is substantiated on the need to systematize preventive law in form of a codified normative act – the Code on Prevention of Offenses in the Russian Federation, which should be aimed only at preventive regulation. The structure of this code is offered. In the authors’ opinion, the system of preventive law is a unified legal complex consisting of legislation of the Russian Federation, its constituent entities, as well as normative bylaws that regulate preventive legal relations that emerge prior to commission of offense, and for determination and elimination of the factors that conduce commission of offenses, as well as have educational impact upon persons in order to prevent commission of offenses or antisocial behavior.