Essay On The Criminal Justice System

The status of the criminal justice system in Europe during the 1700s was the product of long tradition of aristocracy. An aristocracy government is one in which land is owned by particular families and is passed down through the generations of a family line. The monarch of the region grants titles and powers to the privileged classes, who in return keep order within their land and swear loyalty to the monarch. Property and power in an aristocracy were the privileges of birth alone and being merit was simply irrelevant. Their lives circled around maintaining, while attempting to expand, their wealth and power. Historically, as a higher class among others, aristocrats were known to be negligent towards the poor. To where they were prone to appoint

As an Italian lawyer and legal philosopher, he saw the then-actual criminal law as a messy jumble of laws, customs, and traditions that were being derived from ancient Roman and German cultures. This traditional law included criminal justice practices such as the use of torture to secure a confession and capital punishment. Beccaria not only believed that these methods were erratic, but ineffective. He also believed that these practices did not serve the public to its greatest potential of justice. Beccaria’s desired goal was to rationalize this jumble of laws into a uniform system that demonstrated the spirit of innovation and consistency, with principle and predictability. He would then publish the influential treatise, On Crime and Punishment, in 1764. He believed that those who abused the judicial system of its powers, did not serve the greatest good of the public. Arguments such as, justice being executed among the public, judicial torture being eradicated and deemed as inhumane, and how the accused should have a presumption of innocence until proven guilty; would be of the included within the

Originally, the essay directed towards the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I as a criticism of Italy’s legal system. This sparked interest among Italians, for those who were familiar with Beccaria’s political work prior to the publication. Though there were most people that were not fond of his work. He acknowledges the acceptance of cruelty to some nations on how they practice torture during pre-trial. Whether it is to force a confession of the crime they alleged committed, his/her accomplices of the alleged crime, and/or to expose him/her of other crimes they committed, but with which him/her has not actually being charged of. He goes into saying that no man should be presumed guilty before a judge, because of the dilemma to whether the accused actually committed the crime or not. Beccaria weighed in on the question of how a judge has the authority to inflict punishment on those accused, while there is doubt that the person may or may not be guilty. Within the essay, he also asserts the fact on how the punishment must fit the crime rather than being a source of vengeance. Towards the end of the essay, Beccaria professes that no confession should be made under torture, making it invalid if it is not under a sworn validation. He concludes that torture should not be useful at all before conviction, only after