It is a psychological absurdity and a social danger, which
nevertheless underlies the new Italian penal code, that punishment
ought to consist more and more in a short isolation of the
prisoner. For, setting aside the well-known results of short
punishments, such as corruption and recidivism, it is evident that
in this way punishment is deprived of its main element of negative
efficiency against crime, as well as of its effect in preventing
crime during the incarceration of the criminal.
II.
Since punishments, instead of being the simple panacea of crime
which popular opinion, encouraged by the opinions of classical
writers on crime and of legislators, imagine them, are very
limited in their deterrent influence, it is natural that the
criminal sociologist should look for other means of social defence
in the actual study of crimes and of their natural origin.
We are taught by the everyday experience of the family, the
school, associations of men and women, and the history of social
life, that in order to lessen the danger of outbreaks of passion
it is more useful to take them in their origin, and in flank, than
to meet them when they have gathered force.
Bentham relates that in England the delays caused by hard-drinking
couriers, who used to be heavily fined without any good result,
were obviated by combining passenger traffic with the postal
service.
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