Abstract

In the last quarter of the XXth century a relevant part of sociological literature stressed the diffusion, in Western societies, of a lexicon of fear bounded with the emergence of patterns of neo-retributive justice, of public policies of law and order, and of a market of commodities and services for individual protection. Moving from a reading of Hobbes' political theory, which attributes to fear and violence a crucial role for the foundation of the State and of penal institutions, the essay discusses the interlacement among the diffuse re-emergence of fear and violence, the sense of crisis in modern societies, and the tensions that characterizes the contemporary penal sphere.