The conclusion, therefore, is still the same, namely that judicial
repression, in France and Italy, has grown stronger and stronger,
whilst criminality has increased more and more.
In this fact, again, which confutes the common opinion that the
sovereign remedy of crime is the greater rigour of punishment, we
may fairly find a positive proof that the penal, legislative, and
administrative systems hitherto adopted have missed their aim,
which can be nothing else than the defence of society against
criminals.
Henceforth we must seek, through the study of facts, a
better direction for penal legislation as a function of society,
so that, by the observation of psychological and sociological
laws, it may tend, not to a violent and always tardy reaction
against crime already evolved, but to the elimination or diversion
of its natural factors.
This fundamental conclusion of criminal statistics is so important
that we must confirm it by adding to the statistical data the
general laws of biology and sociology. This is the more necessary
because my position as first stated has met with some criticism.
In the first place, it is easily seen, when we compare the total
result of crime with the varied character of its anthropological,
physical, and social factors, that punishment can exert but a
slight influence upon it.
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