Coercion is the most important institution of criminal procedural law, which determines not only the directions of restrictive influence, but also the essence of criminal court proceedings. The direct impact on the rights of its participants is accompanied by many theoretical and applied problems. The purpose of this study is to obtain new knowledge about the essence, forms of coercive influence in the conditions of criminal proceedings and the methods of legal support that properly protect and defend the legitimate interests of subjects of criminal procedural relations. Tasks to be solved: study of modern conditions that contribute to a change in the concept of coercion in criminal proceedings and those measures that have a restrictive effect on the legal status of subjects of criminal procedural relations; understanding the trends in the science of criminal procedure, influencing the modern ideas about the measures of coercion and the means of ensuring rights; formation of the author's position on the essence and types of law-limiting and law-enforcement influence in criminal proceedings; putting forward a scientific hypothesis about correcting the essence of criminal procedural coercion; search for grounds for its confirmation and substantiation of conclusions. The study was carried out on the basis of a set of general scientific and specific scientific methods, including dialectics, various types of analysis, synthesis, generalization, logical, systemic and structural, modeling, etc. The results of this study have become scientific knowledge that complements and, in some part, clarifies the concept of the essence of procedural coercion, measures of coercion, their classification, methods of influencing the legal status of subjects of criminal procedural relations, means of legal enforcement that properly guarantee the protection and protection of legal interests. participants in criminal proceedings. On the basis of the results obtained, separate proposals were formulated on improving the legislation in terms of both the formation of measures of procedural coercion, and the means of ensuring protection from legal restrictions. The author's vision of solving some of the problems arising in the case of legal restrictions applied to legal entities is formulated.