Dei delitti e delle pene

by Cesare Beccaria

La giustizia è il vincolo necessario a tenere insieme una società e tutte le pene che oltrepassano questo vincolo sono, per loro stessa natura, ingiuste: è questo principio semplice e rivoluzionario ad animare il più celebre trattato dell’Illuminismo italiano. Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1764, nelle intenzioni del suo autore questo scritto avrebbe dovuto dare inizio a una nuova era, sciogliendo una volta per sempre il diritto dalla violenza, la legge dall’arbitrio, la giustizia dal privilegio. Questioni che, due secoli e mezzo più tardi, non solo risultano ancora drammaticamente attuali, ma si ripropongono con inaudita, quotidiana ferocia anche nel cuore di quell’Occidente “figlio dei Lumi” per cui Beccaria nutriva grandi aspettative.
Tanto più urgente risulta allora rileggere e riscoprire questa pillola di saggezza e intelligenza, oggi. Per armare di conoscenza e riflessione la propria indignazione di fronte all’iniquità, politica e giuridica, che permea il mondo contemporaneo.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Law, Classics, Politics, Italian Literature, Italy

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1763

About the author

Cesare Beccaria was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist, and politician who emerged as one of the most important figures of the Enlightenment. He is best remembered for his groundbreaking 1764 treatise On Crimes and Punishments, a seminal work that condemned torture and the death penalty and advocated for criminal justice reform based on reason, proportionality, and deterrence. Beccaria’s ideas helped lay the foundation for modern criminal law and earned him recognition as the father of both criminal law and criminal justice.
Born in Milan in 1738, Beccaria was educated at the Jesuit school in Parma and later studied law at the University of Pavia. Although initially drawn to mathematics, his interest shifted to economics and legal reform under the influence of Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Helvétius. He became closely associated with the Verri brothers, founders of the Milanese intellectual society “L’Accademia dei pugni” (Academy of Fists), whose discussions inspired Beccaria’s interest in reforming the criminal justice system.
Encouraged by Pietro Verri, Beccaria published On Crimes and Punishments anonymously, fearing political backlash. The essay quickly gained international attention and was translated into several languages. In it, Beccaria argued that laws exist to maintain the social contract and that punishments should be proportionate to the crime, serve a preventive function, and be applied promptly. He rejected the use of torture, secret accusations, and the death penalty, insisting that harsh penalties are neither effective nor morally justified.
Beccaria’s work influenced major legal reforms throughout Europe and shaped the thinking of American founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Though he never produced another work of equal impact, his ideas have endured for centuries, influencing contemporary criminal policy and continuing to inspire debates on justice, deterrence, and human rights.

Reviews

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probabilmente uno dei testi più straordinari che ls temperie illuminista abbia prodotto. Con analisi ragionata, Beccaria costruisce un autentico compendio giuridico in cui analizza temi quali colpa, condanna, pena, ripercussioni sociali e, in maniera modernissima per l'epoca (e tuttora attuale), su tortura e pena di morte. Gli antichi assunti punitivi vengono completamente ribaltati in nome di normative del tutto nuove, che non traggono origine da pulsioni o impulsi, ma da quella scintilla razionale che, più di altre caratteristiche, dovrebbe contraddistinguere l'essere umano.

[Cecilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se non stessi odiando Cesarotto (ormai siamo amici, capitemi) adesso nel prepararlo a fondo per un esame, vi direi che quello che ha scritto è un trattato/pamphlet che tutti dovrebbero leggere, a dispetto della sintassi ingarbugliata di alcuni punti. I temi trattati per la maggior parte sono, dopo più di duecento anni, ancora attuali ed è triste notarlo, e non mi riferisco solo alla pena di morte o alla tortura, ma anche alla "semplice" certezza della pena, tanto per dirne uno. Illuminante, e in qualche modo anche capace di suscitare orgoglio, nel constatare che un italiano, con un libro, ha cambiato tanto. E manco ce ne rendiamo conto!

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

un must-read per il 99.9% dei politici a livello mondiale

[ilaria ౨ৎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non sono una grandissima fan, ma riconosco che si tratti di una lettura essenziale non solo per chi opera in quel campo, ma per chiunque abbia a cuore la libertà e i diritti umani.

[Fonch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ladies and gentlemen on this occasion a book has been read, which is one of the bases of Current Law, and that has helped so much to shape it. The publisher I have read is that of the volumes of the newspaper Sol, which specialized in publishing short books. Soon a review of Pedro Antonio de Alarcón's "Clavo" will be written, which he also published for this publisher. To write this review (on Instagram it is very changed) has helped me from a debate, which I have had on Facebook with A.T., as I said in my review of "The Light of Gabriel" by Thomas E. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... I said, that in this review A.T. was going to help me. Much of the information he has given me is his, and deserves to take credit, particularly in the case of the clarification of Le Barre's crime. It should be noted that the Prologue of this edition, which I have read, is very ideologized, and is very partial. Apart from this, I only use A.T.'s initials to protect him from hypothetical criticism, because we know that ours is not the hegemonic discourse, and that very possibly we were criticized, for what it is going to be written. So I trust, that in this way the possible anger, and criticism will fall on me. Of course I have invited Mr. A.T. to make an account at Goodreads, and I have asked him to join The Catholic Book Club. This review will be in four languages English, Spanish, Italian, and Polish. The author's intention is good, since Beccaria is responsible for an attempt to eliminate the death penalty (something legitimate, and fair at least in Europe, and although I am very critical of my continent in that I am in favor of Beccaria), such as torture. It is a pity that, despite everything, despite his good intentions, I have to be critical of this book. The positive thing is that it is a book, which reads nothing. It didn't take me two hours to read it. The flaw it has is that it is very cumbersome, and it is misunderstood. Beccaria's dissertations unfortunately make it difficult to understand the book. Not being easy to read for the current user. The author's idea (as noted above) is a good one. After the execution of Damiens (as the prologue of the book says, which is very tendentious), and here my colleague A.T. intervenes that regarding the execution of Damiens, frustrated regicidal, who tried to attempt on the life of Louis XV with a non-sharp stiletto A.T. says something, which I already knew, but I did not say in my Instagram review Louis XV wanted to pardon Damiens but the "parliaments" were relentless (it should be said, that curiously it was the members of Parliament who incited Damiens to attempt on the life of the King, because the King wanted to suppress them. Something, which at the end of his reign he achieved, but they were again replaced by his grandson Louis XVI. Regarding Louis XV he is actually the main protector of the enlightened whom he used to cover his adulteries with Madame Pompadour Jean Poissons, who when he stopped attracting the lust of the King carried out a work of pimping, and sought out younger lovers for the King. This was done in the famous Deer Park. . As the Jesuits denounced him for this they were dissolved by Choiseul (an enlightened minister of the confidence of Madame de Pompadour). Be done is confirmed by Ramiro de Maeztu https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . Not only that, but they fomented a persecution in the Catholic kingdoms of Portugal with Pomball, Spain with Carlos III (a King, who despite having good press did a lot of stupid things, as I saw yesterday in a video of Patricio Lons on YouTube), and was highly criticized by Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... for his undesirable friendships. On Carlos III this points A.T " With Charles III, who came to reign in 1759, Spain opened fully to the European Enlightenment, and with greater discretion to anti-religious and anticlerical currents. In this field there was a tremendous setback when Charles III, in 1767, expelled the Jesuits, also achieving that Pope Clement XI dissolved the order in 1773. They would also end up being expelled from the rest of Catholic countries (Portugal, France, Naples, Parma ...) thanks to the anticlerical campaigns of Gallicans, Jansenists and enlightened anticlericals such as Diderot https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , d'Alembert https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and Voltaire https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . The expulsion of the Jesuits had disastrous effects on science in Catholic countries. One of the "great legacies" of the Enlightenment. It is important to note that the Jesuits were the elite of European science. The scientific achievements of the sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola are innumerable, mentioning all their discoveries is beyond the purpose of this chapter, but a historian describes the contribution of the Jesuits to eighteenth-century science: "They have contributed to the development of the pendulum of clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflection telescopes, microscopes, magnetism, to optics, to electricity. The Jesuits looked before anyone else at the colored bands of Jupiter, the Andromeda Nebula and the rings of the planet Saturn. They theorized, independently of Harvey, about blood circulation. They theoretically formulated the possibility of air navigation, the effects of the moon on the tides, and the wavy nature of light. They made maps of the southern hemisphere, established symbolic logic, introduced plus and minus signs into Italian mathematics. All these were achievements of the Jesuits and scientists of the stature of Fermat, Huygens, Leibniz and Newton counted on the Jesuits as their most precious correspondents." On the Jansenists, and here I speak again, they generally found refuge in the French Parliaments. Although it is a bit long A.T. mentions the contributions of the Jesuits to science, and other tasks these Jesuits were welcomed in the uncatholic kingdoms of Prussia, and Russia by the enlightened Frederick II, and Catherine II with which their expulsion impoverished the science of the West, and prepared the emancipation of Latin America, due to the discontent of those countries by the suppression of the Order. With regard to the Enlightenment mentioned by A.T., they do not seem to me the worst, despite the malice, and the slanderous impulse of Voltaire. Some like Helvetius https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... it was too radical, even for these people, since it went from deism to atheism, and even Voltaire, who died devoured by his own excrement, had to stop his feet. Meslier https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... appears in the book "Monsters of Reason" by Rino Cammilleri https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... (of this book, which has been so decisive in my life I want to make a criticism in conditions, because the reviews are in my opinion unfairly low). The Abbé Raynal https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , and who fostered the Black Legend Spain with his lies was one of the architects of the Spanish-American emancipation, bringing misery to Latin America. s for the Le Barre Trial this is what A.T. says: "Voltaire grossly and slanderously manipulated the torture of the knight de La Barre. It is that you always write the same topics and I always have to repeat again and again the reverse of things, but I tell you about the famous anti-Semitic, anticlerical philosopher and idol of the progressives Voltaire; the Chevalier de la Barre affair was made by Voltaire "a symbol of religious and clerical oppression". However, Michael Burleigh's Earthly Power shows on page 47 the Volterian fraud. The knight de la Barre was indeed handed over to torture for allegedly desecrating a crucifix. But Voltaire is silent that the real reason for the judicial nonsense was the animosity of a lay official, and the parliament of Paris had confirmed the sentence to counteract the reputation of anticlericalism that had accumulated with the vengeful persecution of the Jesuits. Voltaire carefully concealed the strenuous efforts of the French clergy and papal nuncio for pardoning La Barre. Voltaire was a sycophant of militaristic despots such as Frederick the Great and Catherine of Russia. When the latter invaded Poland in 1768 the despicable and servile Voltaire began a propaganda campaign to deceive European public opinion into believing that the invasion of Poland was to defend religious freedom. With a pair. Diderot three-quarters of the same. They would not be the last intellectuals to praise a "progressive" Russian despotism. To be seriously informed of the vicissitudes of the enlightened I recommend that you read Earthly Power by Michael Burleigh; by the way, this book is worth reading just to see how Voltaire grossly and slanderously manipulated the torture of the knight de La Barre; the Chevalier de la Barre affair was made by Voltaire "a symbol of religious and clerical oppression". However Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War by Michael Burleigh https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... shown on page 47 the Volterian fraud. The knight de la Barre was indeed handed over to torture for allegedly desecrating a crucifix. But Voltaire is silent that the real reason for the judicial nonsense was the animosity of a lay official, and the parliament of Paris had confirmed the sentence to counteract the reputation of anticlericalism that had accumulated with the vengeful persecution of the Jesuits. Voltaire carefully concealed the strenuous efforts of the French clergy and the papal nuncio to pardon La Barre.
. Some enlightened of which Voltaire was a part. They asked him (Beccaria) to write a book. What it does is complete what Montesquieu had already outlined in "The Spirit of the Laws" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . In fact, Montesquieu is mentioned several times in this text. The problem is that Beccaria starts from a wrong conception of the human being, and is surrounded by bad company, and this can be seen in the text. As a good enlightened man thinks that man is not evil by nature (he has been influenced by Voltaire, Helvetius, Montesquieu, and Rosseau. "El Emilio" is quoted https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... about Mr. Rosseau's edifying life, I ask you to take a look at the first chapter of Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... which I will use for my critique of Henrik's "An Enemy of the People." Ibsen https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... . He took the opportunity to express my mourning, and grief over the death of Paul Johnson, and express my best wishes to his family, friends, and fans. May God have him in his glory). This makes Hobbes amend. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... that defends the opposite, and that advocates the total power of the State against the individual, and that this more centralized (on this subject, as almost always virtue is at the middle point). There is a criticism of the author to the rigorism of Carpzovious https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , Caro, and Farraccio (it is curious, that he only gets Catholic judges, and does not get the cruel judge Jeffries of England). It tends to the idea of the architect God that God has created the world, but does not intervene in it. What he advocates is to reduce the influence of the religious, and that these have less weight. Something very disturbing is that natural law was loaded, and it is society that decides what is right, or wrong, reminding us of Locke https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , as if a Parliament were not wrong, or the popular will could not make unjust laws. The serious thing is that something ceased to be unfair depending on the whims of a society, which can be manipulated by oligarchic elites (as is the case in these times in Spain there are attempts to decriminalize pedophilia, and zoophilia by a party, not to mention abortion, and euthanasia, which have expanded, and is the result of these policies). Beccaria makes another mistake, and that is to idealize, following Confucius https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (a misunderstood Confucianism) the times before Christianity. On this A.T. has to say "by Christian influence in 365 it was forbidden to condemn the prisoners to be devoured by animals in the circus, Pope Damaso condemned torture and atrocious penalties in 382, so for example St. Jerome repudiated in his letters the executions of adulteras ordered by the emperors. Pope Nicholas abolished torture in Bulgaria in 866, Gregory VII banned the burning of witches in Denmark. Although many representatives of the early Church were convinced abolitionists (the apologist Quadrato, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, Pope Damaso, Pope Nicholas, the Parabolan monks of Milan) and thought that it was not enough to protect the lives of the innocent. During the fourth century the Milanese monks and Archbishop Ambrose managed to successfully paralyze the capital executions ordered by the Roman magistrates in Milan, but beware one thing is capital punishment in the fourth century and quite another capital punishment in a democratic country with judges and prosecutors elected by the people. "Empires of cruelty" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... The bleaker aspect of Rome and Greece, and how Modernity has traced it on an industrial scale through The Debate "Read more about Pope Nicholas the Great's letter to the Bulgarians in 866 and the prohibition of torture". Here I speak again. One could quote the letter to Diognetus, or how they ended the gladiatorial battles, or how the Council of Trent forbids duels. I also mentioned other books such as The Rise of Christianity https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... books such as "Dominion" by Tom Holland https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... or the novels of Gene Wolfe, either because it tells us about what the world was like before Christ in Classical Greece, or what would have happened, if Christ had not incarnated in the saga of Severian https://www.goodreads.com/series/4147... https://www.goodreads.com/series/4945... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... Not realizing that Christianity has continued with the Greco-Roman worldview implying, that with the empire there were hardly any death penalties. He seems to ignore the condemnation of Socrates https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (without showing us the pettiness, quarrels, and fratricidal hatreds of the Greek polis, and how they outlawed their best leaders), and how the Greeks took religious offenses. The criticism of Aristarchus of Samos is https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... the beginning of Galileo's error (or the banishment of Anaxagoras https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...). He says that there were no duels, but in the Iliad there were only duels https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... (the gladiatorial combats are the Christians, who put an end to them see the case of San Telemachus). In fact, gladiatorial combats are that, and their origin is for funerary themes. Not to mention beheadings, and the death given to parricides (and the infanticides, and abortions that existed, not to mention how non-Romans were treated by handing them over to wild beasts, drowning them, or crucifying them). In fact, he proposes something terrifying that blows up the idea of equality that he claims to defend, and that is that he wants to reinstate slavery. Even if it is temporary, first-class citizens would be created, and second-class people, those who had violated the morality of the State would not have rights (so we would find ourselves facing a mild totalitarianism). He is constantly telling us that the evil of these times, although the morals were affected at this time (it is still curious how in the eighteenth century wars increased, although none was as lethal as the war of the 30 years, racism, anti-Semitism, slavery, how the nobles practiced zoophilia and how the enlightened themselves took among them, neither, despite Laplace science advances a lot, as Professor Manuel Alfonseca argues https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... Marat already says it, when he executed Lavoisier "The revolution does not need wise men" not to mention the misogynistic, and classist character of the revolution itself, that what killed the most were peasants, and bourgeois, repressed the nascent labor movement, and fomented a genocide in which 200,000 people died, ending in a personal dictatorship). Crimes against society are reinforced. It promotes a society more interested in money, and more materialistic (it should be remembered according to the prologue, that Beccaria has been compared to Adam Smith https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , and had its notions of economics). He makes a blatant praise of kings whose morals leave much to be desired like Frederick II. We see a blatant preference for Protestant countries. Forget to say that in England you were executed for stealing a piece of bread, even though they abolished torture. He says that Isabel Petrovna has done it, but the truth is that Catherine II executed Pugachev, so that influence was not very long-lasting. He ignored the Swedish case. Another terrifying thin

[Xander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cesare Beccaria’s On Crime and Punishment (1764) is an essay that was published pretty early in the Age of Enlightenment. It was influential In France, England and the US, among other countries, and it is a superb illustration of the humanitarian ideals that the Enlightenment thinkers propagated.

The essay itself is rather short and consists of 47 small sections which deal with specific subjects.

In general, Beccaria’s thesis can be summarized as the following theorem:

- A punishment is no act of violence of the society against the individual, if and only if:
- It is public, direct and necessary
- It is as mild as possible
- It is proportional to the crime (impact and species)
- It is determined by law (i.e. objective)

In other words, Beccaria wanted to do away with the arbitrariness and inhumanity of penal law as it was practised in most countries back then. In the conditions of humane penal law we see all the Enlightenment themes surfacing: the equality of all people regardless of class and status, the autonomy of each individual, the logico-mathematical approach to social questions, objectivity as a social criterion.

Beccaria’s theorem is the result of an analysis of the fundamental issues surrounding criminal punishment. He places the origin of penal law in the social contract (fictive or not). To overcome all the problems of individual life people band together and in this they voluntarily give up their right to violence, etc. In this there arises a common interest, which has to be defended by and embodied in a higher authority. The state is born. All the while, human passions being what they are, and the multiplicity of mutually exclusive private interests, it becomes necessary to institute criminal law and enforce it through punishment.

But punishment seems to be an offense against the social contract, which was deliberately signed with the aim of protection of individual rights. This tension is inevitable, but it can be mitigated through the methods of division of powers and strict application of laws.

For Beccaria, the sovereign is lawmaker and its task is to offer a complete and understandable system of determining laws, as well as to continuously update the laws when experience demands it. The judge, or the jury, is not allowed to interpret the law: his sole function is applying syllogistic reasoning to the case at hand. The law and its prescribed punishment are the major premise; the current case is the minor premise; and the conclusion of the syllogism is either freedom or punishment for the suspect. In other words: the sole function of judge or jury is to evaluate the evidence and witness reports, and to conclude whether the suspect is guilty or not. The law prescribes itself, so to speak. This is an important point that Beccaria emphasizes throughout the essay. Arbitrariness and selectivity in penal law leads to tyranny and inhumanity.

For Beccaria the goal of punishment is simply the prevention of the crime being committed again, either by the same person or by others. We inflict bodily harm on someone in order to prevent the unfortunate situation from recurring. That is, we purposefully break the social compact and in doing so, we have to ensure that all punishments inflict the highest impressions on the public at large at the smallest bodily harm for the person involved.

Another very important point in the essay is Beccaria’s total rejection of the death penalty. It is barbarous, ineffective (the worst crimes are committed irrationally) and goes fundamentally against the social compact. But most important of all, it is not punishment at all – the criminal is instantaneously killed and that’s that. Better is to punish him by lifelong slavery (forced labour), since the length and severity of the punishment is a much better preventive measure. Also, this type of punishment should be reserved for only the worst species of crimes: those that endanger the whole of society and/or the sovereign (i.e. high treason).

Most of the essay is concerned with very specific cases, for example the species of crime and the appropriate punishment for each. This is all rather uninteresting for a review. So let me end with a particular interesting notion of Beccaria: the family as a threat to liberty. He observes that a society of 100.000 people which is founded on family structure (given the average size of five members per family) has only 20.000 free citizens. The head of the family is a tyrant in the family sphere, yet he is free in broader society – the 80.000 remaining citizens are oppressed on both accounts. Only in a society that binds all individuals – as individual – to the law, can freedom for all be guaranteed. This breakdown of inherited social structures is a familiar theme in Enlightenment thought – whether it’s the breakdown of absolutism, religious dogmatism, economic mercantilism, or family structure.

In short, On Crime and Punishment is a typical Enlightenment plea for the abolishment of tyranny, barbarity and inequality, and the establishment of personal autonomy, equality (before the law) and humanity. It is a sympathetic little text which was very important in reforming the penal system of many a country back then. It still breathes a very lively breath to modern readers, forcing one to reflect on the principles of established norms or laws (as institutionalized norms) that are taken for granted.

[Kam Sova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ceza hukuku alanında çığır açmış bir 18. yüzyıl eseri. O yıllarda yaşamış birinin böylesine düşündüğünü bilmek ilgi çekici bir deneyimdi.

[Simone Invernizzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una straordinaria e interessantissima opera che racchiude importanti riflessioni sul valore della pena, le leggi dello stato, l’uso della pena di morte, il sistema giudiziario e lo stato di diritto. Cesare Beccaria, uno dei massimi esponenti dell’illuminismo italiano e milanese, con questo testo ha contribuito a creare le basi su cui si fonda la nostra società.

[Navaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading his treatise I must admit I am a enlightened man of a broader perception, my view on punishment, and the society the society is impacted by it. Beccaria considered a classical criminologist, very logically and analytically explores different forms of crimes sorts them with degree of severity relative to the damaging effects on the society as a whole, and effective means of punishment. He argues that a more immediate punishment is more effective and the certainty of punishment and not the severity of it is a more effective deterrent for prevention. He also argues that the the barbarity of society should dictate the severity of crime, for instance the well established civil society that has been softened by years of it, should reduced the severity of punishment, capital punishment no longer is of great use as the barbarity of the punishment out way the deterrent effect, rather a form of bondage that caries infamy is more effective. He further cautions on the overuse of infamy and effect with progressive evolution of society.

Beccaria was pro prevention and as such I would quote from the introduction that condenses his view.

To prevent crime a society must 1) make sure laws are clear and simple, 2) make sure that the entire nation is united in defense, 3) laws not against classes of men, but of men, 4) men must fear laws and nothing else, 5) certainty of outcome of crime, 6) member of society must have knowledge because enlightenment accompanies liberty, 7) reward virtue, 8) perfect education, and finally 9) direct the interest of the magistracy as a whole to observance rather than corruption of the laws. If this nine principles are followed there would be less of a need to follow the other principles of trial and punishments.
It is interesting in that the United States through the founding fathers was greatly influenced by this essay by Beccaria. Yet in the early days due to the federal nature of the country and being of wild and vast, where the arm of law was stretched, frontiersman sought vigilant justice, relative barbarity prevailed the land. Perhaps that is why capital punishment is still in effect in some state. Nevertheless here are some of the ways U.S constitution was influenced by classical criminologists like Beccaria and Bentham

rules against vagueness, right to public trial, right to be judged by peers, right to dismiss certain jurors, right against unusual punishments, right to speedy trial, right to examine witnesses, coerced or tortured confessions are considered invalid, right to be informed of accused acts and the right to bear arms.

Also I would quote his conclusion in it's entirety.

"I conclude with this reflection, that the severity of punishments ought to be in proportion to the state of the nation. Among a people hardly yet emerged from barbarity, they should be most severe, as strong impressions are required; but, in proportion as the minds of men become softened by their intercourse in society, the severity of punishments should be diminished, if it be intended that the necessary relation between the object and the sensation should be maintained.

From what I have written results the following general theorem, of considerable utility, though not conformable to custom, the common legislator of nations:

That a punishment may not be an act of violence, of one, or of many, against a private member of society, it should be public, immediate, and necessary, the least possible in the case given, proportioned to the crime, and determined by the laws."


See also my my blog post
http://neovatar.blogspot.com/2013/12/...

[Alessandro Buongiorno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non sarò certo io il primo - ma nemmeno l'ultimo - a lodare i meriti di tale opera, scritta e pubblicata più di due secoli fa dal giurista milanese illuminista Cesare Beccaria. Un saggio che ci fa rivivere il sistema giuridico dell'epoca, con tutti i suoi pregi e difetti, sottolineando in moltissimi casi l'asprezza e l'inutilità di certe pene, nei confronti di delitti che non necessitavano di punizioni eccessive, contro persone spesso "innocenti", ma costrette comunque a subire torture d'ogni tipo, prigionie, eccetera. Beccaria quindi avanza la propria opinione in merito, senza però pretendere di avere la verità assoluta fra le mani, illuminando la società e gli Stati di quel periodo storico grazie a delle proposte che tutt'oggi riteniamo efficaci ed anzi necessarie allo svolgersi di un processo equo per tutti. Sfortunatamente alcuni giuristi d'oggi paiono aver dimenticato o addirittura non aver proprio letto il gran lavoro di Cesare Beccaria, grazie al quale - ad esempio - ora in Europa nessuno Stato approva la pena di morte. Per noi contemporanei sembrano cose ovvie le sue, ma è più che appurato il suo essere un precursore in materia.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faccio sempre una gran fatica a leggere i saggi, soprattutto di argomenti che non mi sono familiari, ma ne è valsa la pena.

[Robiok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a university exam
Would it be enough to say this is one of the most human perspective on criminal law the world ever saw, that almost 300 years later I would still recommend many legislator to read this and learn?
It’s a masterpiece.

[Nina Neis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilhante!
Beccaria à frente do seu tempo em 1764 e até 2023 tem gente que parece não ter entendido... (sem tempo, irmão!)
Um clássico importantíssimo que fundou a base do direito penal no mundo e que deveria ser lido por todos, não só pelos acadêmicos.

[Rick Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

On Crimes and Punishment, Cesare Beccaria argues for different punishments.
He starts with a famous quote,

"Every punishment which does not arise from absolute necessity is tyrannical." -- Montesquieu

Laws are conditions under which Men are united.
Punishments are necessities to defend public liberty.

Beccaria writes on all types of crimes, including Adultery, Suicide and Sodomy.
How do you convict Suicide? After all, the person has died.

It seemed that he has a strong case to argue for most of crimes and punishment.
One quote which I loved was, "The Laws is greater than of those by whom they are violated, the risk of torturing an innocent person is greater."

I imagine for death penalty, torture, the risk of inflicting pain on innocent people is greater. As I was learning about death penalty in the United States, they abolished it around 1850's - 1890's due to a lot of pressure from Social Justice groups. A few states still have death penalty.

During the late 1800s, Some people find it entertaining when someone was hanged in public. They would drink in public while watching execution. Now these are not in the book.

Overall a great introduction to Crimes and Punishment.

Deus Vult
--Gottfried--

[Laurinha Lero · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Alguns pensaram que a gravidade do pecado entrasse na medida dos delitos. A falácia desta opinião ressaltará aos olhos de um indiferente examinador dos verdadeiros relacionamentos entre homens e homens, e entre homens e Deus. (...) Se Ele estabeleceu penas eternas a quem desobedece à sua onipotência, qual será o inseto que ousará suprir a divina justiça, que desejará vingar o Ser que basta a si mesmo?"

Dos Delitos e das Penas é repleto de excelente e sensível argumentação, como a citada acima, em defesa da sanção laica. Numa reflexão sobre a proporcionalidade das penas aos delitos e a sua função social, Beccaria explora a tortura e a pena de morte do ponto de vista moral e jurídico e pelos olhos do povo, ignorado pela classe legiferante.

Seu raciocínio sobre a gravidade do Direito penal e suas possíveis aplicações políticas e autoritárias permanece relevante hoje, e é de leitura essencial. Cinco estrelas, caralho.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tratado jurídico de derecho penal. Obra de transición. Se tiene que leer en contexto para descubrir que es un avance, aunque sostenga estratégicamente residuos del absolutismo. No se sumó a una corriente, la inventó. Contra la pena de muerte. Contra la tortura. Contra la acusación secreta. Contra las penas desproporcionadas. A favor de las garantías. En síntesis, contra la arbitrariedad y la irracionalidad del poder. Árido de leer porque está escrito para una época en la que se escribía con estilo escolástico, se use o no el silogismo. Se arriesga en algunos temas, en otros se cuida. Gran jurista, todavía mejor político -aunque se queje todo el tiempo de los problemas que le trajeron sus opiniones-. Una nota estética: aunque el texto tiene la serenidad pétrea de la escolástica, la voz narrativa parece de megáfono. Un orador para la multitud, un frontman rockero del siglo XVIII, pero tocando música proto-romántica en un salón cortesano.

[gio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessante e pieno di spunti, rivoluzionario per l'epoca, ma...a livello stilistico è davvero contorto. Le idee e le argomentazioni presentate offrono molti spunti, così come è interessante anche la lettura dell'opera stessa, consideratone l'intento. È proprio questo suo intento utilitaristico che forse oggi ai nostri occhi passa (erroneamente) in secondo piano rispetto alle idee sulla pena di morte e sulla tortura. Tuttavia lo stile è davvero pesante e contorto. A livello sintattico vi sono diversi periodi confusi o esageratamente lunghi e contorti, cosa che non facilita certo la lettura e che ha inciso pesantemente sulla mia valutazione.

[Lucy Qhuay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma obra bastante importante que avançou com muitos dos princípios que servem de base ao sistema de justiça criminal atual, tais como a racionalidade do próprio sistema, abolição da tortura e pena de morte e penas necessárias, proporcionais e humanas.

Não creio que seja muito difícil de entender, mesmo para quem não estuda leis ou o crime, até porque um dos princípios defendidos precisamente por Beccaria é que as leis deveriam ser claras e simples, de modo a que toda a população tivesse acesso a elas.

Para além disso, o autor dá um caráter filosófico e muitas vezes poético a tudo o que diz.

[Andre Soares · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gênese do livro remonta ao aceso debate da época que antecedeu a Revolução Francesa sobre a lei natural e sobre o direito positivo e sobre a relação existente entre os dois: a primeira é virtualmente imutável; o segundo é continuamente modificável para torná-lo o mais adequado possível às exigências da dinâmica social. A doutrina pactual do Estado baseia-se no pressuposto de que o indivíduo prefere à plena, mas virtual liberdade natural, a liberdade política, que é aquela parte da liberdade natural garantida pelo consenso de todos os membros. Assim, BECCARIA, passou a se interessar principalmente pelo estudo dos fenômenos sociais enquanto efeito de um sistema participativo baseado na legitimidade e, portanto, na responsabilidade individual e coletiva.

Escrito em 1763 e publicado em julho de 1764. Pode ser descrito como uma pesquisa – cautelosa em alguns pontos – sobre a objetividade do juiz que opera em um contexto social dominado de modo mais ou menos explícito pelo preconceito. A norma senatorial, graças à qual os membros da nobreza desenvolvem a função de “protetores dos encarcerados”, reconhece implicitamente que a origem da transgressão está na desproporção econômica entre as classes e os grupos que concorrem para dar uma aparência operativa à unidade institucional. BECCARIA envereda por inúmeros temas de Direito, tendo o Direito Criminal como base, na medida que, como objetivo principal, busca estabelecer uma relação de eqüidade entre o delito e a pena aplicada a seu praticante. Com linguagem simples, o livro em questão torna-se literatura obrigatória aos estudantes de Direito. Contudo, seus pressupostos podem servir a estudantes e especialistas de outras áreas, posto que o embasamento filosófico e a imensa noção de direitos humanos é por demais abrangente, servindo assim a toda sorte de raciocínios cujo foco central seja o bem-estar da humanidade.

BECCARIA dá mostras da atualidade de seu pensamento que, retomando o pensamento socrático, em que “todo erro provém da ignorância”, e conduzindo sua obra, assim, a um desfecho que retrata sua fé no poder da educação das massas. Para ele, é melhor prevenir os delitos do que puni-los. É este o escopo principal de toda boa legislação, que é a arte de conduzir os homens ao máximo de felicidade ou ao mínimo de infelicidade possível, conforme todos os cálculos dos bens e dos males da vida.

BECCARIA propõe que não basta construir o depósito das liberdades individuais renunciadas, mas é mister defendê-lo das usurpações privadas de cada homem em particular, o qual sempre tenta não apenas retirar do depósito a porção que lhe cabe, mas ainda procura apoderar-se daquela dos outros. Tal defesa consiste nas leis. Mas sendo leis produto de diferenças sempre existentes, é possível que o corpo político defenda o depósito das liberdades renunciadas com igual empenho contra os excluídos e aqueles que se encontram sob o poder e da riqueza? Segundo BECCARIA que, a quem disser que a pena aplicada ao nobre e ao plebeu não é realmente a mesma em virtude da diversidade da educação e da infâmia que se derrama sobre uma ilustre família, responderei que não se medem as penas pela sensibilidade do réu, mas sim pelo dano público, tanto maior quanto é ocasionado pelo mais favorecido. Embora figurem em ações penais e sejam submetidos à execração pública pelos órgãos de imprensa, os indivíduos que corporificam as altas classes raramente confirmam, com eventual condenação, a proposição de BECCARIA de que as penas são proporcionais aos delitos cometidos e aos danos praticados à nação.

Afirmava BECCARIA que, desejando prevenir os delitos, basta fazer com que as luzes acompanhem a liberdade. Os males nascidos dos conhecimentos estão na razão inversa de sua difusão e os bens, na razão direta. Um impostor audacioso, que nunca é um homem vulgar, é adorado por um povo ignorante e vaiado por um povo esclarecido. Os conhecimentos, ao facilitarem a comparação entre os objetos e ao multiplicar os pontos de vista, contrapõem muitos sentimentos que se modificam entre si tanto mais facilmente quanto mais previsíveis são nos outros as mesmas opiniões e as mesmas resistências.

Outro meio de prevenir os delitos é o de interessar o colégio executor das leis antes pela observância delas do que pela corrupção. Outro meio de prevenir os delitos é o de premiar a virtude. Em ambos os casos, contudo, discordo de BECCARIA: primeiro porque o interesse do colégio executor pela observância das leis não é algo que se possa ensinar tão facilmente. A atualidade mostra que a corrupção no Poder Judiciário é uma tendência quase que mundial. Prefiro crer que a corrupção se combate limitando cada vez mais o poder dado a um mesmo homem. Os magistrados, por exemplo, são verdadeiros “deuses”, homens intocáveis, sobre os quais a Justiça fica impedida de lançar-se, visto que eles são, simultaneamente, executores e objeto da lei. Segundo, porque não creio também que se possa premiar a virtude. Esta só existe enquanto fruto do livre arbítrio humano. À medida que se premia o homem virtuoso este deixa de sê-lo para tornar-se um comerciante: aquele que age conforme o estímulo; um mercenário, posto que o estímulo pode vir de uma das partes envolvidas e, essa mesma, pode não ser aquela que tende a propagar a Justiça, mas sim dificultá-la. O prêmio pela virtude deve ser a satisfação pessoal. Essa premissa de BECCARIA sobre premiar a virtude é, a meu ver, o grande erro desta obra que, sem dúvida, é um marco da literatura jurídica.

[Johannes]

Hyvin kiinnostava kirja: kohdassa toisensa jälkeen huomaa, että moni nykyään vallitsevan doktriinin opinkohta ja argumentti (tuoreina markkinoitu) oli nostettu esiin jo tässä Beccarian 1764 julkaistussa pamfletissa.

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un adelantado (no se pronunciar su nombre)

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the version with commentary from Voltaire. An excellent treatise forming the foundation of the classical school of criminology. This work (among other classic books and treatises) had a massive influence on the development of the American criminal justice system.

[Danilo De rossi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro quanto mai attuale, interessante per i numerosi spunti di riflessione, ma un po' pesante per lo stile.

[ILRION · Rating 4 out of 5]

Empieza describiendo una ejecución pública y eso siempre engancha.

No me extraña que lo prohibiese la Inquisición.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hinge upon which the successful movement to outlaw state sponsored torture as a regular and legal part of criminal proceedings and ultimately to make it a crime against humanity which only the most barbaric, pariah-like governments would employ.

Beccaria was socially clumsy--he was a complete failure in the erudite salons of Paris where Voltaire sponsored him--and wrote very little besides this small book. However it took the world by storm, translated by the leading intellectuals of the day and adopted as policy by states throughout Europe.

Just about every history and legal analysis of torture cites "On Crime and Punishments" as the primary document in the west concerning the abolition of torture.

[Je · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fa spavento quanto questo trattatello sia attuale, e quanto sia stato fondante delle riforme che di lì a poco avrebbero modificato i sistemi penali di alcuni importanti stati. Beccaria individua nella certezze delle pene più che nella crudeltà la vera origine dell'efficacia di queste, e confuta con una logica stringente la validità della pena di morte. Ci illudiamo che tortura e pena capitale siano ormai realtà lontane, ma se abbiamo perso la capacità di indignarci per queste, non aspettiamoci che qualcuno si indigni quando saremo noi a subire abusi da parte del potere.

[Floriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

attualissimo ed interessante sia dal punto di vista letterario che da quello umanistico e politico

[Mathias · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Essay on Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria

Should a crime be punished according to its results or by its intends? The centuries old question will be finally answered in this review, so bear with me!

The field of crimes and punishment is a very important one for libertarians. But it doesn’t get all the light it deserves because libertarianism is fuelled in the first place by economics which has not much to say upon this. Happily, I came across this essay by pure luck, I wanted to listen to some Voltaire on LibriVox and it happens that this essay was listed under his name, because he wrote a commentary for a translation. The book was published in 1764 and I’m astonished to see the Enlightenment in some respect being so far advanced of our own times. While it is true that the book was very influential and many ideas got put into practice, there still remains some reforms to be done. It’s the first book of the Italian enlightenment I came across (Frankly, I wasn’t sure that they had one ;-) which motivated me to listen to it as well.

I’m very happy that the author takes my sides in some questions I consider key but unfortunately we also have our differences.
He is against the maxim that the spirit of the law is to be considered rather than the exact wording of the law. He argues that to adopt this would be to give away to a torrent of opinions and it would lead to the same law being implemented differently. And I would add, it would open the door for politically motivated verdicts. We are not alone in this opinion, the great individual anarchist and abolitionist Spooner was vehemently on this side when he examined whether there were constitutional laws in the US that provided for slavery (there are none).

On the other hand, the minor conservative-liberal thinker Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn ( reviewed his Leftism before) thinks that it’s the spirit of the laws that should be taken into account over the strict letter, though his comment was directed towards constitutional law and not penal law (This is not always strictly separated, here in Switzerland we have some part of the penal law written directly into the constitutional. This happened in the last decade of the first part of the 00s as the politicians refused to put into law a popular petition that wanted harder punishment of non-Swiss criminals, so they started another popular petition where they put their demands directly into the constitution. This didn’t help though much, because we do not have a constitutional court). But the question remains, whether it is penal or constitutional law, or any other branch of the law, why the spirit of the law should be taken into account? Were the people formulating it too dumb to put correctly into words what should apply? I hardly doubt. And if so, the solution would not be to adhere to spirits (always a bad idea) but to correct the faulty laws. It’s really as simple as that. But interest groups make it appear to be more than that in order to achieve more political power for judges.

Beccaria dealt with the question of how much to punish a crime. For this he developed an interesting scale of crime, that indicated how much a certain class of crimes was hurting society, with the first one being the worst crimes:
1: (Those who immediately tend to a dissolution of society) High Treason
2. Crimes that are destructive to the security of individuals. Security is the reason why humans create and enter society (B. is here influenced by Hobbes), therefore highest punishment should be applied (This contradicts his saying that the crimes of class 1 should be punished to most severe). Examples given are murders and robberies. Rape would obviously also belong to this category.
..
N (The last being the class of crimes that do the smallest possible injustices to a private member of this society). Crimes which disturb public tranquillity. Tumults and riots in the streets.

The punishment should be the greater the lower the number on the scales to which the crime belongs. Because, if two crimes would be punished equally, who are on different parts of the scale, there would be nothing to deter men from committing the greater crimes, as it is attended with greater advantage.

Here we see the first departure from libertarian principles. A libertarian would have been more interested in a scale that shows how classes of crimes hurt the individual (rather than society). Although, in this case, the scales would come out almost identically. High treason would still be on top, because it still threatens individual liberty, albeit only indirectly. Later on, we’ll see how this different approach leads Beccaria to set up some wrong principles based on flawed logics.

The second point I fully agree with Beccaria and which is one that I think is of utmost importance, is that those err who believe that the greatness of crimes depends on the intention of the criminal. The author argues that it would be necessary to form a particular code for every individual and a penal law for every crime. Also, from modern economics (long after Beccaria’s time), we learn that it is not possible to learn about a person’s intention with certainty. All that a judge can make then is educated guesses and this can easily give hand to corruption and grave injustices.
Beccaria informs us that the degree of sin is dependent upon the malignity of the heart, which is impenetrable by finite beings (Beccaria was aware of this important insight of Austrian Economics). But the heart is penetrable by god, who punishes or forgives our sins. Beccaria asks: “How then can the degree of sin serve as a standard to determine the degree of crimes ?”
To make intentionality a factor in punishment is to confuse the different concepts of crime and sin and make “gods” out of our judges. Apotheosis is never a good idea to put into law.

Beccaria argues that every citizen should know when he’s innocent or guilty. Censors or arbitrary magistrates should not be necessary. He says that the uncertainty of crimes have sacrificed more people to secret tyranny than have ever suffered from public or solemn cruelty. This is super important today with the myriad of laws (often of great length) that legislation is putting out. If you want to know if you’re doing something innocent or guilty, you would have to spend your whole life reading laws, but you would never catch up since legislation is putting out new laws. There are several books dealing with this problem, one that was just recommended to me is Harvey A. Silverglate’s Three Felonies A Day. The person who recommended it to me also gave me this great quotation by Tacitus: “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government."

He further argues that when Police do not act according to the code of laws, they open the door to tyranny.

According to Beccaria, the object of punishment is to deter the criminal from further doing the crime and do deter others from doing it. Punishment should be chosen so as to make the strongest and most lasting impression on potential criminals while doing the least torment to the body of the punished.

It is obvious that there is a conflict of reconciliation between these two points. And it seems to be in a potential conflict with his scales of crimes, where crimes are punished according to the class they belong. How is this to be reconciled? Beccaria offers no direct help. It becomes worse when Beccaria adds that a punishment shouldn’t be disproportionate to the crime. It’s hard to reach a verdict that does justice to every criterion. As a libertarian, to me the criterion that a punishment should be proportionate to the crime, is by far the most important and the only one that should be used. If it happens to deter others from doing the crime, that’s all the better. And if it isn’t as horrendous as to pervert the rest of society that’s another great silver lining. But proportionality should really be the key here, and while Beccaria mentions it, he neglects it at other times.

Concerning as to who should be allowed to testify, Beccaria held some modern, humanistic views:
Women (He rejects the argument that women are weak)
Those already punished with capital punishment
Those who are branded with infamy
In all these cases, they have no inclination to give false testimonies.
Credibility of the witness should be only determined on the relation with the potential criminal, whether that relation was based on hatred or friendship.
One witness is not good enough. And, very interestingly: The credibility of a witness diminishes as the atrociousness of the crime increases.

There are two kinds of evidence: Perfect and imperfect (mostly what we today would call circumstantial). Perfect evidence excludes the possibility of innocence, only one is therefore needed.

He formulates another very important maxim: All trials should be public.

He says that secret accusations are bad.

He is against capital punishment. He even indiscriminately calls capital punishment murder, which is plainly wrong and offensive. It is only murder in the case that the defendant was innocent or the defendant did a crime that was lesser than murder (i.e. robbery).
Beccharia calls capital punishment barbaric and argues that it perverts the minds of the citizens, which is a good argument imo.

Now, there’s a part in the book that deals with the prevention of crimes. One solution is to give out rewards, to someone for something. I have completely forgotten what it was all about. Another way to lower crimes (which I agree to), is to ‘perfect’ education. But for this, the education system would have to become privatized. All in all, I found this part of the book to be the weakest.

What I find to be very wrong, and indeed dangerous, is his view that the right to punishment belongs to society rather than the individual. From this he deduces that the prince has no right to pardon anyone. A conclusion I can agree with. But he also says that the offended have no right to prevent the punishment and with this I cannot concur. Here he’s far removed from the anarcho-capitalistic position. The state (or whoever is in charge of criminal cases) has only a right to go after the perpetrator with the victim’s consent. If that consent is missing, nobody has the right to judicially go after the suspect. In a murder case, or in cases where the victim(s) end up in a coma (or are in one from the start) or are in a similar condition, the consent is assumed to be given (In some cases, it may be overridden by the wishes of the victim’s loved-ones, but how that is supposed to work out in reality is not the topic of this review).

This is all I have to say about this marvellous book but it came with a commentary of Voltaire, which I also want to mention. He brings the case of a young, poor, unmarried mother who murdered her newborn baby child as she was overburdened and apparently didn’t know how to deal with the situation in a less gruesome way. The mother was condemned to death and Voltaire criticized this. This was surely a hard and heart-breaking verdict, but having capital punishment in place, how could the verdict have been different? As Beccaria points out, it’s the outcome of the crime and not the mothers alleged intentions that have to be considered. And since Beccaria believes that it’s the society, not the victim (or victim’s loved ones) that has the right to punish, there’s no mitigating circumstances to be looked for. The reason here, why Beccaria would be against capital punishment is that he is against capital punishment’s per say. So I wonder, whether Voltaire has actually understood the book.

Further on, Voltaire cites The City of God by Saint Augustine. I found that interesting because I’m listening to this book whenever I walk my pug.

Voltaire says that kings should always sign death warrants before a capital punishment is executed. So as to make sure there’s no mistake.

Also, Voltaire introduces the difference between natural law and political law: “I CALL natural laws, those which nature has dictated in all ages, and to every people, for the maintenance of the principles of that Justice which nature, notwithstanding all that has been said against it, has implanted in our hearts. Theft, violence, homicide, ingratitude to indulgent parents, perjury committed to injure, not to assist, an innocent person, and conspiracy against our native country, are positive crimes, every where more or less severely, and always justly punished.” And “I call those, political laws, that are made to meet a present emergency, whether for the purpose of strengthening the power of government, or the prevention of future misfortune. For example ; it is apprehended that the enemy may receive intelligence from the inhabitants of a city ; you shut the gates immediately, and you forbid any one to pass the ramparts, on pain of death.” This is a similar distinction as between natural law and positive law or malum in se and malum prohibitum.

[Massimo Venegoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro illuminante che tratta di ben più della pena di morte di cui tanto si è sentito parlare alle superiori. Almeno per chi, come me, non ha scelto una carriera accademica di lettere, legge o filosofia.

Importantissima sì la sezione centrale contro la pena di morte e la tortura e sull'omicidio. Concetti che, purtroppo, restano preclusi a gran parte delle culture odierne.

Il Beccaria si sofferma nello spiegare come la severità della pena debba essere inversamente proporzionale alla probabilità del delitto, ma direttamente proporzionale alla sua efferatezza verso il bene pubblico.

Contrariamente a ciò che credetti sino a qualche pagina fa, l'autore non promulga necessariamente la rettificazione o la compassione verso il reo effettivo, ma piuttosto il suo pragmatico utilizzo con l'ottica del bene comune. Ergo un lettore potrebbe arrivare a pensare che i lavori forzati o l'espulsione di minoranze incompatibili con la società esistente possano essere non solo giustificati, bensì anche leciti. Si vedano i passaggi sull'asilo e sulla prigionia.

Un lavoro inaudito, se si considera che Beccaria lo scrisse a fine del XVIII secolo, che tuttavia non riesco a valutare con 5 stelle, a causa della scelta stilistica dell'autore stesso, che intenzionalmente adoperó un linguaggio forbito e arcaico già per i suoi tempi: a mio avviso una mancata opportunità, in quanto limitante la sua diffusione tra ceti sociali.

Sul commento finale dato dal Voltaire: più comprensibile e diretto, forse troppo coi suoi aneddoti. Inoltre, talvolta semplicistico e concettualmente arido o persino contrario a ciò che ritengo fosse il pensiero del Beccaria.
Tuttavia, è probabile che con questo suo intervento Voltaire abbia facilitato la diffusione de "Dei Delitti e delle Pene".

[Anderson Paz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A obra foi publicada em 1764. É um clássico reformista do sistema penal. Beccaria defende que a origem das penas se dá pela necessidade de reprimir o delito em sociedade. Por meio de um contrato social, os indivíduos acordam em viver conjuntamente e atribuem ao governo o monopólio da força.
As leis, porém, devem ser gerais e os juízes imparciais em sua aplicação através de uma interpretação silogística. A punição se legitima com base nas leis. As leis devem ser escritas para dar transparência, como também a punição deve ser proporcional. A medida do delito é o dano causado.
A finalidade da punição é desencorajar novos delitos. Deve haver regras de um devido processo legal público e transparente que promova a dialeticidade. Deve-se proibir a tortura.
A aplicação da pena deve ser rápida em relação ao delito cometido. A certeza da punição é mais eficaz que sua severidade. Deve-se proibir a pena de morte e se aplicar penas moderadas e contínuas por serem mais eficazes no desencorajamento de novos delitos.
Beccaria resume no último parágrafo do livro dizendo: "para que cada pena não seja uma violência de um ou de muitos contra um cidadão privado, deve ser essencialmente pública, rápida, necessária, a mínima possível nas circunstâncias dadas, proporcional aos delitos e ditada pelas leis".
A obra é um clássico na humanização do direito penal e podemos ver sua influência em nossas leis hodiernas. Porém, peca ao ver a punição apenas no sentido de desencorajar o crime, mitigando a necessidade de que a aplicação de uma pena sirva também para punir o culpado.