Civil disobedience gives rise to a puzzle. On the one hand, there are compelling reasons to think that it is wrong to punish civil disobedience. For one, civil disobedience appears to be an important mechanism for promoting justice, and punishing those who engage in it would seem to amount to imposing an unfair burden on them. For another, punishing civil disobedience appears to be contrary to the legitimate aim(s) of punishment. On the other hand, punishment appears to play an important role in enabling civil disobedience to be a costly political signal, something that is crucial to the special way in which it is supposed to be capable of bringing about change. Thus, we would seem to face a difficult choice. Either we avoid the wrong of punishing civil disobedience at the cost of undermining its capacity to achieve its core function. Or we maintain the capacity of civil disobedience to achieve its core function by doing something wrong. I shall examine various ways of responding to the puzzle and argue that none is wholly successful.