Beccaria’s Theory on Crimes and Punishments

Introduction

There is a reason that Cesare Beccaria is known as the father of modern criminology and Classical School of criminology. His work from On Crimes and Punishment which was published in 1764 first anonymously has revised, defined and shed the light needed on the views of the U.S. and overall the Western world when it comes to crime in our society and the approach of our criminal justice system which is still intact today. His main goal was to make our system as fair and rational as possible for humanity, focusing on their free-will of people with a strong belief in the most crucial of his theories; deterrence. His ideas and work were born and influenced from the Enlightenment Age era in the 17th and 18th centuries whose philosophers he looked up to. His work has grown to greatly play a role in our Constitution and engraved foot marks in our legal system in every step of the process when dealing with crime. Furthermore, it has forever changed how our legal system operates and how we view individual’s choices associated with crime. Next, we will dive into the world of our father of criminal justice to grasp an understanding of his theories, how his ideas have changed overtime, contemporary versions of this theory, policy implications of his theory, research methods that could be used to test his theory and lastly criticism of his theory.

Basics of His Theory

First, we examine Cesare Beccaria’s work in great detail to understand what this man stood for, strived for and most importantly what he has fallen for. The goal here is to better understand his theories and ideas which are deeply rooted and are the foundation of our criminal justice system today. The most important theory that he focused on in his work was deterrence and that is what gave him the name of father of deterrence theory. He was the one who opened our eyes to human behavior and what pushes them to commit crime. He favored human choice for explaining crime rather than destiny such as the belief that a person is born either good or bad. He focuses on three aspects behind punishment that play a role in the human choice to commit crime. (Tibbetts & Hemmens 2015) present that there is swiftness of punishment present which basically supported the idea regarding the length of time passed between a crime and sentence being crucial factor. Beccaria greatly focused on the promptness of punishment. His goal was to have as less time to pass between trial following a sentence for an individual as possible because when an individual is able to connect a certain crime with punishment we end up with better and more just outcome. For the human brain to be able to register the cause and effect in other words the crime committed being the cause and the pain of punishment the effect it matters how much time passes in between.

As more time passed the human mind seems to have trouble linking these two ideas more and more to each other. His second key point was certainty of punishment which in his eyes risk of punishment being present impacted deterrence immensely. Last, there is severity of punishment in which Beccaria explained that in order for a punishment to most effective and useful the pain must be just enough to outweigh the pleasure. This meant that the punishment must affect the individual in such a way that they believe the benefit received from the crime committed was not worth it. However, he supported mildness of punishment and he explained that in countries where punishments have been the harshest resulted in more inhuman acts. Cruelty beyond needed to outright the benefit was unnecessary in his eyes and only can lead to more crime. This sums up Beccaria’s three elements of punishment which he put great emphasis on in his work.

As we come to understand Beccaria’s work was big on punishment and that was his main area of focus. Some other ideas that (Tibbetts & Hemmens 2015) introduced that he brought to our attention was pushing for equal punishment for the same crime, meaning his goal was not to allow one defendant to be severely punished with a harsh sentence by one person and yet have another individual who has committed the same crime have the chance to walk away without any consequences. With that said, he wished for instead of judges to decide crimes upon individuals or have a say in interpreting the law, legislatures should be in charge of the process. His aim in our legal system was fairness and a democratic process which gave a voice to the people in order to achieve that he believed more than one person should be involved in such decisions associated with criminal cases. He was a supporter of the right to punish.

He strongly believed that every punishment should come from absolute necessity. He put the importance of each citizens liberty and fairness when it came to punishment first. Beccaria was against harsh punishment and did not support any kind of torture or cruel acts towards defendants especially with the goal for confession. Beccaria strongly stood against torture and presented his idea of any information received through torture not to be reliable and worthless. With that said it comes as no surprise that he was against capital punishment (death penalty). He explained that capital punishment violated the social contract. Social contract is the understanding between citizens and law enforcement basically stating that citizens willingness to give up their freedom to be protected by the law. He believed that the death penalty set a negative example for society. These were some of views that Beccaria presented towards punishment.

Another belief which he emphasized on was for was for citizens to be educated and to be able to fully comprehend the laws of their state. He pushed the idea that education can lead to deterrence. It’s as simple as if you don’t know the existence of a law or don’t fully grasp an understanding of a certain law then you won’t know when you are breaking it. Another part of his belief in educating the citizens he believed that punishment should only take place in public meaning that a criminal justice system process should not be behind closed doors. This would give citizens the opportunity to get familiar with the system, how decisions are made and give them the chance to view the fair and balanced system for citizens. He believed education was a form of deterrence. Another theory which shed light on our justice system and impacted the Western world was his ideas behind defendants being able to cross- examine witnesses, meaning that he was against secret accusations during these procedures. Today defendants have this right in our legal system because of his work. His views on society's education and rights have come to play a great role in our criminal justice system.

How Beccaria’s Ideas Changed Over Time

Just like any legends work, Beccaria’s work has changed overtime in our society especially the aspect of the death penalty and his views on punishment such as the intent of the offender. One of Beccaria’s main contributions behind being the founder of the modern abolition movement plays a huge role in this change. The death penalty is a great example of such change and it stands as one of the most controversial topics in our society today that we have watched transform era by era in our country. In Beccaria’s time the death penalty was significantly abused by the justice system with large number of people facing capital punishment in harsh methods such as hanging, burning and beheading with Britain influencing America's use of the death penalty more than any other country. Under The Code of Hammurabi written in the 1700s B.C., twenty-five crimes were in fact punishable by death. These crimes included adultery and helping slaves escape. Surprisingly, murder was not one of the twenty-five crimes. Today lethal injection has replaced electrocution as the dominant method of capital punishment in the United States. Most key factors that can have one executed are crimes such as treason, espionage, murder, or large-scale drug trafficking, As we can see we came a long way of our how our justice system views the death penalty today.

Next, we look into his views on punishment such as the intent of the offender. His belief in actus reus which supported that anyone who commits a crime against society should face the same punishment and furthermore that the law should impose the same consequences for a specific crime no matter the circumstances fails to be supported today. There is clear problem with the view in our modern justice system because it doesn’t take into consideration the offenders intent which is crucial in today system of how punishment is decided. For example, in U.S. today when it comes to homicide cases we differentiate them by first degree murder (malice aforethought) or second-degree murder (mens rea). Degrees play a significant role in how we punish today therefore Beccaria’s idea of focusing on only act itself just doesn’t cut it in in today's legal system. These are some of the ways that his ideas have changed overtime in our society.

Contemporary Versions of Beccaria’s Theory

As we have come to learn Beccaria’s work is known to have an outstanding impact on philosophers and our justice system in all Western countries throughout the world especially striking in England. Some contemporary versions of Cesare Beccaria’s theory come from Jeremy Bentham who was greatly influenced by Beccaria’s work. Bentham was an English philosopher who was known as the founder of modern utilitarianism. As brought to our attention by (Tibbets & Hemmens 2015) even though he didn’t make much changes or contributions to the classical theory, he helped enlighten Britain on Beccaria’s philosophy, theories and ideas of Classical School. One of the contributions that he is known for is hedonistic calculus which is the explanation behind the concept of out weighting pleasure versus pain principle. This theory was based and inspired by Beccaria’s work supporting humans having free will on decision making. He focused on a two-sided balance scale weighing pros and cons for decision making of a rational being. According to (Draper, A. J. 2000) another individual who was influenced by his work was Sir William Blackstone who was a was an English judge and known for writing Commentaries on the Laws of England published in 1765-1769. Beccaria’s ideas influenced him on his writings on punishment. Furthermore, William Eden was a British politician who was influenced by Beccaria's work even more immensely and also used his idea in his writings on punishment. taking the form of a contractarian in Principles of Penal Law published in 1771 and Four Letters to the Earl of Carlisle published in 1779. Beccaria's influence and inspiration spread to others like fire and continues to until this day.

Policy Implications of Deterrence Theory

Next, we dive into policy implications of Beccaria's theory. It is no surprise that Beccaria's ideas live on and that many policies are based on the deterrence theory in our legal system. As (Tibbets & Hemmens 2015) explain the death penalty is one way we deter for committing crime however as we recall Beccaria believed that capital punishment is not the answer and not an effective way to deter crime. Based on research and studies Beccaria’s ideas turn out to be valid. Some studies also teach us about the brutalization effect which means there was an increase in homicides after a high-profile execution. We have concluded that the death penalty is not the solution. Next, we look at court and correctional strategies such as the ???scared straight??? approach. The goal of these programs is to give juvenile offenders a piece of reality by pulling them into the world of prison life for them to experience the brutality first hand. After these programs have been closely evaluated we learn that the results are ineffective way to deter. There was a reason Beccaria was against harsh punishment and did not believe that would lead us into any positive results. Another policy aspect that comes up from the Classical School model is the belief that increasing the number of police officers to deter crime can be effective. However, recent studies show that this doesn’t seem to be the case. Overall most strategies born from the classical deterrence theory don’t seem to always work for deterrence. If we think back to Beccaria’s views on people making their own decisions he based this model on rational individuals who take time to evaluate their decisions before they act upon it however, research proves that citizens a lot of times make decisions on irrational bases which we will discuss more later on.

Research Methods Used to Test Beccaria’s Theory

What good is a theory if we can’t test it correct? Let’s now look into some research methods that could be used to test Beccaria’s theory. There are number of sociologists and criminologists that have contributed to testing the deterrence theory with numerous research methods presented. In 1976 Sociologist Matthew Silberman was one of the first researchers to use individual survey research in coexistence with collection of crime data in his examination of deterrence theory. He conducted his research by focusing on questionnaires including a self-report crime inventory and a criminal involvement index that was administered to 174 undergraduates. ???Employing a complex correlational analysis and multivariate analysis of variance, the existence and magnitude of the relationships among the degree of moral commitment to the legal norm, the perceived threat (certainty and severity) of punishment, and patterns of differential association on self-reported criminality were contingent on the level of analysis (individual vs offense), the level of perceived certainty of punishment, the level of conformity or commitment to the legal norm, the type of offense, and sex role???. (Quackenbush, S. 2011, p. 4). His findings supported that certainty of punishment was differentially affected by the type of crime committed as Beccaria had put forth in his theory.

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