Moreover, for such as have
been overwhelmed with terror when the moment of execution arrived,
the utmost that this fact can prove is that they are so
constituted as to give themselves up completely to the impression
of the moment, without the energy to resist it. In other words,
so long as the punishment is distant and uncertain, they were not
terrified, but having always yielded to the impression of the
moment, they yielded to the criminal impulse.
For other punishments, also, it is known that punitive methods,
even when not contrary to the law, as they sometimes are in Italy,
are always less stern than simple folk imagine when they read the
codes and the sentences. And criminals naturally judge of
punishments by their own experience, that is to say, in accordance
with their practical application, and not with the more or less
candid threats of the lawmaker.
If we add to vindictive feeling, historic traditions, oblivion of
bio-psychic differences of the social strata, the confounding of
exceptional laws and ordinary punishments, and of the varying
effective force of punishment, the attitude of the public mind and
the natural tendency of criminalists to think only of their two
syllogistic symbols of crime and punishment--if we further add the
easy-going idea of the multitude, that the inscribing of a law in
the statute-book is a sufficient remedy for social diseases, we
can readily understand how this exaggerated and illusory
confidence in punishment is so persistent, and crops up in every
theoretical or practical discussion, in spite of the strong
refutation which is daily afforded by facts and psychological
observation.
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