Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Biographical glossary
- Note on the texts
- Bibliographical note
- On Crimes and Punishments
- Frontispiece
- To the Reader
- Introduction
- 1 The origin of punishment
- 2 The right to punish
- 3 Consequences
- 4 The interpretation of the laws
- 5 The obscurity of the laws
- 6 The proportion between crimes and punishments
- 7 Errors in the measuring of punishments
- 8 The classification of crimes
- 9 Of honour
- 10 Of duels
- 11 Public peace
- 12 The purpose of punishment
- 13 Of witnesses
- 14 Evidence and forms of judgement
- 15 Secret denunciations
- 16 Of torture
- 17 Of the exchequer
- 18 Of oaths
- 19 Of prompt punishments
- 20 Violent crimes
- 21 The punishment of the nobility
- 22 Theft
- 23 Public disgrace
- 24 Parasites
- 25 Banishment and confiscations
- 26 Family feeling
- 27 Lenience in punishing
- 28 The death penalty
- 29 Of detention awaiting trial
- 30 Trials and prescriptions
- 31 Crimes difficult to prove
- 32 Suicide
- 33 Smuggling
- 34 Of debtors
- 35 Asylums
- 36 On setting a price on men's heads
- 37 Attempted crimes, accomplices and immunity
- 38 Leading interrogations, depositions
- 39 Of a particular kind of crime
- 40 False ideas of utility
- 41 How to prevent crimes
- 42 The sciences
- 43 Magistrates
- 44 Public awards
- 45 Education
- 46 Pardons
- 47 Conclusion
- To Jean Baptiste d'Alembert
- To André Morellet
- Inaugural Lecture
- Reflections on the Barbarousness and the Civilisation of Nations and on the Savage State of Man
- Reflections on Manners and Customs
- On Luxury
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
41 - How to prevent crimes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Biographical glossary
- Note on the texts
- Bibliographical note
- On Crimes and Punishments
- Frontispiece
- To the Reader
- Introduction
- 1 The origin of punishment
- 2 The right to punish
- 3 Consequences
- 4 The interpretation of the laws
- 5 The obscurity of the laws
- 6 The proportion between crimes and punishments
- 7 Errors in the measuring of punishments
- 8 The classification of crimes
- 9 Of honour
- 10 Of duels
- 11 Public peace
- 12 The purpose of punishment
- 13 Of witnesses
- 14 Evidence and forms of judgement
- 15 Secret denunciations
- 16 Of torture
- 17 Of the exchequer
- 18 Of oaths
- 19 Of prompt punishments
- 20 Violent crimes
- 21 The punishment of the nobility
- 22 Theft
- 23 Public disgrace
- 24 Parasites
- 25 Banishment and confiscations
- 26 Family feeling
- 27 Lenience in punishing
- 28 The death penalty
- 29 Of detention awaiting trial
- 30 Trials and prescriptions
- 31 Crimes difficult to prove
- 32 Suicide
- 33 Smuggling
- 34 Of debtors
- 35 Asylums
- 36 On setting a price on men's heads
- 37 Attempted crimes, accomplices and immunity
- 38 Leading interrogations, depositions
- 39 Of a particular kind of crime
- 40 False ideas of utility
- 41 How to prevent crimes
- 42 The sciences
- 43 Magistrates
- 44 Public awards
- 45 Education
- 46 Pardons
- 47 Conclusion
- To Jean Baptiste d'Alembert
- To André Morellet
- Inaugural Lecture
- Reflections on the Barbarousness and the Civilisation of Nations and on the Savage State of Man
- Reflections on Manners and Customs
- On Luxury
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the principal goal of all good legislation, which is the art of guiding men to their greatest happiness, or the least unhappiness possible, taking into account all the blessings and evils of life. But the means hitherto employed have been mistaken or opposed to the proposed goal. The chaos of men's activities cannot be reduced to a geometric order devoid of irregularity and confusion. Just as the constant and very simple laws of nature do not prevent the planets being disturbed in their orbits, so human laws cannot prevent disturbances and disorders among the infinite and very opposite motive forces of pleasure and pain. Yet this is the fantasy of limited men when they have power in their hands. To forbid a large number of trivial acts is not to prevent the crimes they may occasion. It is to create new crimes, wilfully to redefine virtue and vice, which we are exhorted to regard as eternal and immutable. What a state would we be reduced to if we were forbidden everything which might tempt us to crime? It would be necessary to deprive a man of the use of his senses. For every motive which urges a man to commit a real crime, there are a thousand which urge him to perform those trivial actions which bad laws call crimes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Beccaria: 'On Crimes and Punishments' and Other Writings , pp. 103 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995