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In this paper, I provide an extensive examination of the political theory of
Thomas Hobbes in order to discuss its relevance to an understanding of contemporary
issues and challenges faced by criminal law and criminal justice theory. I start by
proposing that a critical analysis of Hobbes’s account of punishment reveals a paradox that
not only is fundamental to understanding his model of political society, but also can offer
important insights into the preventive turn experienced by advanced liberal legal systems. I
then suggest that the main importance of an analysis of Hobbes’s theoretical framework
lies in how it reveals an inextricable and problematic link between individual autonomy
and political authority in the normative conception of the modern liberal state, grounded on
the notion of insecurity. By exploring how legal scholars have recently engaged with
aspects of this problematic in criminal law and punishment posed by Hobbes’s work, I
argue that the paradox found in punishment is such that it both legitimates the criminal law
and undermines its normative aspirations, particularly the possibility of securing individual
liberty against the power of the liberal state.