How Did Beccaria Cause Crime

ABSTRACT: This paper will present and explain the things that made Cesare Beccaria such an astounding jurist. It will briefly take the reader through the life of Cesare Beccaria, while focusing on important events that lead Beccaria to form the beliefs and ideas he did. Some key topics this paper will be looking at is Beccaria 's theory of crime prevention and punishment of crime, while also looking at what Beccaria says causes crime in the first place. Finally, this paper will look at Beccaria's legacy and what lasting effects he has had on the legal systems of today.

Cesare Beccaria was born on March 15, 1738 in Milan Italy. Early in his life he attended the Catholic congregation school of Jesuit in Parma, a city in northern Italy. Later

The countries and times most notorious for severity of punishments, were always those in which the most bloody and inhuman actions and the most atrocious crimes were committed; for the hand of the legislator and the assassin were directed by the same spirit of ferocity: which on the throne, dictated laws of iron to slaves and savages, and in private instigated the subject to sacrifice one tyrant, to make room for another." (Of The Mildness of Punishments, On Crimes and

By reading his work it has only enhanced by knowledge of jurisprudence, and has enabled me to understand our legal system better and even critique it in new ways by looking at things in a different way. For example when he talks about torture, he defends how the use of this really has no place in a good legal system. One place I might disagree with Beccaria would be in Chapter 7 when he talks about intent, or the overall intention someone had when they were about to commit a crime. When Beccaria says we should essentially only look at what hard it has done to society and not the intentions of the person because sometimes people with good intentions do bad and something people with bad intentions do good, I don't agree if my understanding of what he is saying is correct. I think this could allow for someone quite evil to go free, simply because the outcome they wanted did not happen. It is kind of hard to think of a specific incident, but what if someone wished something really heinous happened to society by what they had planned up, but it didn't. Should we let them go only to have the plan fully enacted at a further date? I think our system of having things such things as attempted murder or attempted manslaughter is a smart thing to