Beccaria, Cesare

Cesare Bonesana Beccaria (1738–94) was an Italian economist and politician best known for his brief but justly celebrated pioneering essay on penology, Dei delitti e delle penne (On Crimes and Punishments). This essay colored the views of many successive legal reformers and became incorporated into the penal codes of Europe and the United States. Although Beccaria lived before criminology emerged as a scientific discipline, his influence on criminology generally, and on the classical school of criminology in particular, was profound. His work remains relevant even today.

Born in Milan to an aristocratic family, Beccaria studied at the Jesuit college in Parma before graduating from the University of Pavia in 1758. Then, under the intellectual influence of the brothers Alessandro and Pietro Verri, Beccaria helped to organize a society, l'Accademia dei Pugni (the Academy of Fists), which was committed to political and economic reform. After reading works by Montesquieu, Helvetius, Thomas Hobbes, and David Hume, Beccaria produced a treatise in 1762 about remedies for the monetary disorders of Milan. However, it was only after collaborating closely with the Verri brothers (while Alessandro was a prison official in Milan and Pietro was writing a history of torture) that Beccaria produced his magnum opus of 1764, On Crimes and Punishments.

On Crimes and Punishments was initially published anonymously for fear of reprisals in response to the book's attack on the legal and prison systems then in place. Only when it became clear that authorities accepted the views contained therein did Beccaria dare to attach his name. The essay, however, became immediately famous. It was translated into French in 1766 and passed through six editions, all within 18 months. It was translated into English in 1767 and was read by statesmen such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Beccaria's essay was noteworthy not for its use of the social and political concepts that were in vogue at the time—ideas of social contract, utilitarianism, rationalism, and hedonism—but for the manner in which he combined these concepts. On Crimes and Punishments is not a desiccated exegesis of legal scholarship but an ardent, urgent call for legal and penal reform, written with great clarity and deep humanity. Building upon the concept of the social contract, Beccaria argued that each person sacrifices to the community just enough liberty to induce others to defend it. He then argued that those who commit crimes are in breach of the social contract and must be punished. Because he assumed that people are rational actors who are motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, he believed that a properly ordered system of punishments would deter criminal conduct. Any punishment beyond this, Beccaria argued, is unnecessary and unjust.

Beccaria suggested that laws should be clear in defining crime and that judges should merely determine whether the law has been broken. He argued that punishments should be proportionate to the seriousness of the crimes for which they are imposed. Minor crimes should be punished little, whereas serious crimes that threaten the very existence of society should be punished severely.

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