Cesare Beccaria & Punishment Essay

Cesare Beccaria was an Italian jurist, enlightenment thinker, and philosopher. In 1794, he wrote On Crimes and Punishment. In this book, he talked against torture and the end penalty, al champion he was virtually famous for laying a foundation of penology, which deals with the repression of turn activities and penalty of criminal offenses committed. Beccaria was most famous for declaring that a punishment should able the crime. He meant several things by this, but most importantly was his two primary(prenominal) points. This first way he produce that the punishment should fit the crime is that the malignity of punishment should parallel the severity of maltreat resulting from the crime. This did non mean that if mortal was a murderer, that they should be put to death. Beccaria publicly condemned the death penalty because he said that the present does not possess the right to plight lives, and that it is not a very recyclable form of punishment. He stood for a to a gr eater extent deterrent function of the penal system. When he said it must match the indemnification of the offense and parallel the harm of the crime, he was more referring along the telephone lines of punishment and incarceration.His befriend point was that the punishment should be arduous bounteous to outweigh the plea for sure of committing the crime. For example, someone might look at internal assault as pleasurable, therefore the punishment needs to be severe enough for that person to think, Wow, the punishment is harsh, its not worth committing this crime. If this wasnt the case, a demythologised person would weigh the gain with the consequence, and come up that the crime is worth committing because if thats single my punishment, then why not. People promote because speeding tickets are simply fines, if you were to be booked and incarcerated, Im sure race would speed less. Not expression that this is how it should be, its just the most continuant example. The prob lem with this second point is that it save applies to rational thinking people, and it doesnt rattling apply at all to a violent criminal with a psychological imbalance and is mentally handicapped who doesnt think things through before they do them.Luckily, this is why we, in the United States, bring on trials because Beccarias theory, all though it does ferment sense, cannot apply to each single criminal and will not deter all(prenominal) type of crime or offender. This makes one think on how our current laws and punishments line up with the theory of Beccaria. especially in the terms of drug laws. 55% of criminals in federal prisons and 20% in raise are all from drug think crimes. This is an extremely high number of people for a simply, usually victimless offense. If the offenders only damage done is to him or herself, then is it completely necessary that the county spends on average, $28,000 a year per criminal in the system?At what point do we draw the line and see that privatization of prisons is devising people rich because were displace far too many criminals in prisons as opposed to other forms of punishment. Would it not make more sense for a commiter of a victimless crime be sentenced to something the like parole or house beguile where the only person theyre responsible for(p) for is themselves, and they can carry on their every day life instead of universe exposed to more hardened criminals and having to adapt to prison society? This leads one to skepticism numerous things such as the effectualness of punishments like the death penalty along with the effectiveness of other forms of punishment and say do these really match the crime applied to them?Intro. to Criminal Justice fifth edition, Bohm/Haleyhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Crimes_and_Punishmentscite_ref-2 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Beccariahttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penology