Review: Cesare Beccarias , An Essay on Crimes and Punishments

Today, the U.S. incarcerates more of its citizens than any other industrialized nation, and their confinement is determined by their respective offenses. Although they may not realize it, these individuals owe a significant debt to Cesare Beccarias early work in penology since they are no longer subject to torture and fewer criminals are being executed for capital offenses. To learn more, the purpose of this paper is to provide a review of Cesare Beccaria (1764). An Essay on Crimes and Punishments. This essay is credited with revolutionizing modern penology by advocating for rational, humane, and proportionate punishments. His work emphasized deterrence over retribution, condemned the use of torture and the death penalty, and laid the foundation for criminal justice reforms centered on fairness, legality, and the protection of individual rights, influencing legal systems worldwide. Following the review of the relevant peer-reviewed literature and a critical analysis, a summary of the essays main points and key findings are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Today, many prisons in the United States are struggling to cope with overcrowded facilities, razor-thin budgets and staffing shortages that preclude most rehabilitative programs in favor of security. Nevertheless, inmates in modern prisons are treated far better than their counterparts in the not-too-distant past, and they can credit Cesare Beccarias 1764, An Essay on Crimes and Punishments for multiple reforms that changed prisons from the torture chambers that brutalized prisoners and freely applied the death penalty during the 18th century and early 19th centuries (Haney, 2016).

According to Rahe et al. (2024), Beccarias book was one of the more influential texts on penology at the time, especially with respect to the unacceptability of torture as punishment, with long-lasting implications for modern criminal punishments. In this regard, Rahe and his associates at the U.S. National Constitution Center emphasize that, The impact of his little book on the post-revolutionary revisal of the laws in the various nascent American states was considerable (para. 3).

In reality, it is reasonable to suggest that many people at the time were unaware or unconcerned about the horrific conditions in the nations prisons unless they or family members or friends had personal experience at the tender hands of the criminal justice system until Beccarias essay became widely known. This means that like Upton Sinclairs bombshell accounts of the unsanitary and downright disgusting practices of the Chicago meatpacking industry during the early 20th century in The Jungle that resulted in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906, Beccarias book was the catalyst the fueled fundamental reforms in the prison system and practices that endure to the present. In this regard, Panov...

226).

Besides other critical reforms, Beccarias book also generated significant attention concerning the appropriateness of the death penalty in the Age of Enlightenment. Prior to the Enlightenment era, execution was generally accepted as an appropriate method of punishment for a wide array of offenses, most of which are not capital crimes today; the publication of Cesare Beccarias influential work in 1764, though, significantly altered the discourse surrounding capital punishment and the effectiveness of incarceration in both America and internationally (Bessler, 2018).

In fact, two of the most important points made by Beccaria that still influence the criminal justice system today are his calls for the elimination of both torture and the death penalty, addressing these two issues...

…tyrannical. It is upon this, then, that the sovereigns right to punish crimes is founded; that is, upon the necessity of defending the public liberty, intrusted to his care, from the usurpation of individuals. (1764, chap. XV).

Taken together, it is clear that humanity is confronted with an authentic dilemma when it comes to criminal justice. The lock em up and throw away the key mindset of the latter half of the 20th century and mandatory sentencing laws which disproportionately affected minorities are proof positive that people want, expect and demand justie, even when they are unable to adjudicate the matters themselves. As Beccaria emphasizes throughout his essay, however, this mindset quickly changes when people become involved with the criminal justice system personally or otherwise. In other words, justice is and always has been a subjective construct that depends on the prevailing Overton window for guidance concerning the most appropriate approach to criminal justice. This means that Beccarias arguments in favor of alternatives to torture and imprisonment warrant ongoing considerations by lawmakers and the legal community alike to make an imperfect system as perfect as possible.

Conclusion

The research showed that Beccaria's An Essay on Crimes and Punishments remains an influential work in the field of criminal justice, challenging long-held beliefs about the purpose of punishment and calling for a more humane, rational approach to criminal law. The research also showed that his emphasis on deterrence over retribution, proportionality in sentencing, and the abolition of torture and capital punishment has left a lasting mark on modern legal systems worldwide. In sum, Beccarias ideas not only influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States but continue to shape debates on criminal justice reform today. While some of his arguments remain controversial, particularly regarding capital punishment, his core principles of fairness, legality, and the protection of…