The only positive conclusion is that, whilst retaining the jury
for crimes of the political and social order, we should aim
at its abolition for common crimes, immediately after securing
stringent reforms as to the independence and capacity of the
judges.
IV.
It needs no further demonstration that the modern organisation of
punishment, based partly on the assumption that we can measure the
moral culpability of criminals, and partly on an illusion as to
their general amendment, and almost entirely reduced, in
consequence, to imprisonment and the cell system, has absolutely
failed to protect society against crime.
Holtzendorff, one of the best known of the classical school,
frankly confessed that ``the prison systems have made shipwreck.''
So also in Italy we have had disquisitions ``on the futility of
repression,'' and in Germany it has been held that ``existing
criminal law is powerless against crime.'' Thus the necessity of
taking steps to counteract this failure is forced upon us more and
more every day. We must proceed either by way of legislative
reforms, as effectual as we can make them, but always inspired by
reaction against the established prison system, or by a propaganda
on scientific lines.
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