The paper examines three central problems involving punitive social control in recent decades: first, the steady increase in the number of incarcerated people (the phenomenon of great confinement), with special emphasis on the Brazilian case; second, the way criminology interprets contemporary confinement (New Penology); and finally, the lack of a (dogmatic) criminal law theory on the reality of mass incarceration. Incarceration data are presented here as premises in order to inquire about the relations between the (normative-philosophical) theories regarding the justification of punishment and the (empirical) phenomena of mass incarceration. The questions behind the current reflection are therefore about what role criminal theories play in the expansion or contraction of the power to punish (potestas puniendi) and the explanations the justification models offer to the problem of hyper-punishment.