Whereas it is precisely because I
recognise the influence of social environment, in addition, that
experimental logic convinces me that punishment is not an
efficacious remedy of crime, unless forces are applied beforehand
to neutralise, or at any rate to counteract, the social factors of
crime.
And if this is not a new conclusion, as one of our critics
observes by way of reproach--as though it were not one of the
characteristics of truth to repeat itself persistently, however
much it may be forgotten or even opposed--we must nevertheless
remark that it is now repeated with a mass of new observations and
definite applications, which give it a force unknown to mere
logical deductions.
The classical school has concerned itself simply with mitigation
of punishment as compared with mediaeval excess; and for this
reason, because every age has its own mission, it could not also
concern itself with the prevention of crimes, which is far more
useful and efficacious. A few isolated thinkers, it is true,
wrote a few bold and far-reaching pages on preventive methods in
opposition to the numerous volumes on punishment; but their words
had no effect upon criminalists and legislators, because science
had not yet undertaken the positive and methodical observation of
the natural factors of crime.
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