This book presents a theoretical examination of the rise and expansion of preventive criminal offences that has gained momentum in Anglo-American criminal justice since the late-twentieth century. It shows how recent transformations in criminal law and justice are intrinsically related to and embedded in the way liberal society and liberal law have been imagined, developed and conditioned by their social, political and historical contexts. The book starts by identifying a tension, within contemporary criminal law, between the importance given to the expression of individual autonomy and...