The vast majority of experts are of the opinion that further tightening of criminal liability is not justified by the increased risk of crime. This leads to a new look at the Polish paradigm of execution of the penalty of imprisonment indicated in the Executive Penal Code. Its assumptions are included in Chapter X of this code. Execution of the penalty of imprisonment is regulated in a total of 100 statutory provisions. Their catalog opens with art. 67 indicating the purpose of the penalty. The text discusses the statutory paradigm of the execution of the penalty of imprisonment and relates it to the current changes in the substantive legal construction of this penalty after the latest amendment to the criminal law.