And that is why the practical defects and
constant impotence of repression in penal justice are the most
eloquent arguments of the experimental school, which extends and
strengthens its own theoretical inductions by the practical
reforms which it suggests.
A first example of the influence more directly exercised by the
new ideas in penal legislation is furnished by the proposal
already realised in the penal laws of Holland, Italy, &c., of two
parallel systems of punishment by detention--one for the graver
and more dangerous crimes, and the other, ``simple detention,'' or
custodia honesta (``as a first-class misdemeanant''), for
contraventions, involuntary offences, and crimes not inspired by
the baser passions.
Similarly, the enumeration contained in certain codes, as in
Spain, and in the old Mancini draft of a penal code in Italy, of
the main aggravating and extenuating circumstances common to all
crimes and offences, such as the antecedents of the accused,
venial or inexcusable passion, repentance and confession of a
crime, extent of injury or the like, is only an elementary and
empiric form of the biological and psychological classification of
criminals.
Thus also the foundation of asylums for the detention of lunatic
criminals, in spite of their being acquitted of moral
responsibility; the more and more vigorous, but often too
empirical measures against the progressive increase of recidivism;
the proposed repressive measures as alternatives to short terms of
detention; the reaction against the exaggerations of cellular
confinement, which I regard as one of the aberrations of the
nineteenth century, are all manifest proofs of the more or less
avowed and logical influence of the data of criminal biology and
sociology on contemporary penal legislation.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215