Cesare Beccaria
Cesare Beccaria
Cesare Bonesana-Beccaria, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggiowas an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, and politician, who is widely considered as the most talented jurist and one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. Recognized to be one of the fathers of classical criminal theory and modern penology, he is well remembered for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments, which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical School...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionJudge
Date of Birth15 March 1738
CountryItaly
For every crime that comes before him, a judge is required to complete a perfect syllogism in which the major premise must be the general law; the minor, the action that conforms or does not conform to the law; and the conclusion, acquittal or punishment. If the judge were constrained, or if he desired to frame even a single additional syllogism, the door would thereby be opened to uncertainty.
False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
Happy is the nation without a history.
The fault no child ever loses is the one he was most punished for.
The punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges to be necessary or useful.
Laws against the possession of weapons only disarm those who have no intention of committing a crime.
For a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes.
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment
Unless some other factor is operative, in large, weak and underpopulated states, the luxury of ostentation prevails over that of comfort; but in countries which are more populous than extensive, the luxury of comfort always diminishes ostentation.
Happy are those few nations that have not waited till the slow succession of human vicissitudes should, from the extremity of evil, produce a transition to good; but by prudent laws have facilitated the progress from one to the other!
Men's most superficial feelings lead them to prefer cruel laws. Nevertheless, when they are subjected to them themselves, it is in each man's interest that they be moderate, because the fear of being injured is greater than the desire to injure.