My answer to the second objection is that the importance of taking
measures to prevent crime has certainly been dwelt upon,
especially from the time of Montesquieu and Beccaria, but it has
been only by way of platonic and isolated declaration, with
no such systematic development as might have given them practical
application, based on experimental observations. Moreover, this
prevention has always been held as subsidiary to repression,
whereas we have arrived at the positive conclusion that
prevention, instead of being a mere secondary aid, should
henceforth become the primary defensive function of society, since
repression has but an infinitesimal influence upon criminality.
Furthermore, it is important to observe the profound distinction
between ordinary prevention and penal substitutes; or in other
words, between prevention by police and prevention by society.
The former merely seeks to prevent crime when its germ is already
developed and active, and it nearly always employs methods of
direct coercion, which, being themselves repressive in their
character, are often inefficacious, even if they do not provoke
additional offences. Social prevention, on the other hand, begins
with the original sources of crime, attacking its biological,
physical, and social factors, by methods which are wholly
indirect, and which rest upon the free play of psychological and
sociological laws.
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