Introduction

Abstract This chapter provides an introduction to the book. It has three main sections. First, it introduces the central question of the book: how to respond to commonplace threats, thereby protecting the rule of law, using non-violent action that targets the liberty of those who pose those threats. Second, it discusses a distinction fundamental to the book, that between general and targeted restrictions. Third, it lays out the dignity-respecting model for targeted restrictions of liberty. The dignity-respecting model describes five ways to justify targeted restrictions of liberty that would nonetheless be consistent with respecting dignity. These different justifications present a “principled pluralism” with regard to targeted restrictions of liberty. The criminal law, as a blaming institution, provides one principled way to justify targeted restrictions; the penal law, as a non-blaming institution based on forfeiture of the right not to suffer a penalty—in contrast with deserved punishment—describes another way. Neither aims at incapacitation per se. Three other justifications can be cited to aim directly at incapacitation: forfeiture of the presumption of law abidingness, having an enforceable duty to limit herself to a similar degree, and lack of accountability.