Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Beccaria - Critical Review

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Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Beccaria
Di Beccaria, an economist and criminologist from Italy, wrote this piece on crimes and punishment, which would later become the corner stone of penology. In the piece, he condemned the acts of torture and capital punishments to the criminals. In his argument, the idea of torturing and punishing the criminals, would not deter crime and was ethically unjust for any state to take upon itself to take someone’s life in a bid to reduce crime, or make the criminals pay for their heinous acts to the society. In his view, rather than focussing on the punishment and torture, the government should lay more emphasis on the preventive measures (Beccaria, 5). To bring about better results with this approach, good deeds and behaviour should be rewarded to cultivate happiness that can be shared by all in the society.
The urgency on the unjust suffering and a great sense of humanity are the basis for this piece, which essentially calls for revolution of the laws. His argume...