Classical and network protest always assumes mass character. In this regard, the study of protest movements should assume: a) The analysis of many protest actions; b) the analysis of each individual protest action as a manifestation of the phenomenon of collective behavior. At the same time, the first level is important in the context of ensuring the representativeness of the second type of research. «Collective action» and «action of a team member» are fundamentally important. The regulatory system always deals with the assessment of the behavior of a particular person. In this regard, criminology and criminal law should not focus on the protest actions themselves, but on the behavior of individuals within the framework of these actions. In the theoretical analysis of the behavior of these individual participants of mass actions, it is necessary to distinguish: a) actions performed during a mass action, and actions that ensure the protest action itself, which can be performed both before and after it; b) actions of organizers, inspirers, leaders of protest actions, and actions of ordinary participants of the protest action; c) actions related to the organization and participation in mass actions coordinated by the official authorities, and in those not coordinated by the official authorities; d) lawful actions and illegal actions, and among the latter - criminally illegal and administratively illegal; e) intellectual, informational actions, and physical actions. To describe these actions, the article suggests using the term «demonstrative protest crimes». They are: a) associated with a well-defined sphere of public relations that arise in the process of interaction between a person, society and the authorities; b) they are imbued with the unity of motivational factors and the characteristics of the personality of the participants; c) they have a common determinative complex and a common mechanism for their commission; d) they have a distinct separation by the place and time of their commission; e) they assume a specific type and mechanism for the implementation of preventive measures. These signs allow us to consider demonstrative protest crimes as a separate, independent type of crime.