And it must be added that for
certain crimes, as for rapes and indecent assaults, which are
nevertheless constantly increasing in France, the punishments have
been increased by several successive enactments. The same is true
of extortion by threats of exposure, which occurs more and more
frequently, as M. Joly also observes, in spite of the severe
punishments of the law of 1863.
The question, therefore, is reduced to judicial repression, the
progress whereof must be observed in the past half-century, for it
has evidently the greatest influence upon crime. Laws, in fact,
have no real operation if they are not applied more or less
rigorously; for in the social strata which contribute most to
criminality the laws are known only by their practical
application, which is also the only truly defensive function,
carrying with it a special preventive of the repetition of the
crime by the person condemned.
Thus the arguments of jurists and legislators have not much value
for the criminal sociologist when they are based solely on the
psychological illusion that the dangerous classes trouble
themselves about the shaping of a penal code, as the more
instructed and less numerous classes might well do.
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