Introduction. The article presents the results of a study of the causes of and ways to overcome the crisis of legal upbringing in contemporary Russian society, manifested in the deformation of legal consciousness and the decline of the general legal culture. It has been established that at the current stage of the development of social relations, educational methods of legal upbringing alone are insufficient. Methods. To achieve the objectives of the study, scientific and regulatory sources were studied, methods of comparative legal and structural-functional analysis of legal phenomena associated with the process of legal upbringing in modern realities were applied. Results. The study revealed the systemic nature of the crisis of modern legal upbringing. Its causes are associated, on the one hand, with the withdrawal of the state from the implementation of this process, and on the other, with a shift in the focus of youth communication activity to the digital environment, where filters of truth and morality prove ineffective. Overcoming the crisis of legal upbringing presupposes the need to implement a state strategy that combines constructive semantic filling of the information space and the protection of citizens' legal consciousness from destructive influences. Within the framework of the second area of activity, it is advisable to use the potential of the inter-sectoral institution of legal censorship as a means of state information policy in the field of legal upbringing, preventing the dissemination of information aimed at undermining the value-legal foundations of citizens' legal consciousness.