In 1764, the now famous treatise “On Crimes and Punishments” was published anonymously, meeting with a success that today would be described as global, creating quite a stir in Italy, and exerting an influence both on the Founding Fathers in the United States and on the Napoleonic Constitution in France. Two years later, having already become an established work, it was released again – though this time it was attributed to the pen of Cesare Beccaria.
As stated by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in his message sent to participants at this international event organized by Aspen Institute Italia and the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Beccaria – a polymath and one of the major leading figures of the Enlightenment and Italian liberalism – “decisively influenced the development of European culture and criminal science, marking a milestone in the journey towards the rule of law“.
During the proceedings, it was noted that the work of Beccaria is clearly recognizable as one of the original sources for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since it gave birth to the idea of a culture of rights which forms the backbone of modern Western thought. In addition to his innovative theories and his profound grasp of law, philosophy and economics, Beccaria was also endowed with an extraordinary gift for communication. His ideas traveled across the ocean, influencing the fathers of the American nation: George Washington was acquainted with and esteemed his theories, and Thomas Jefferson read them in Italian. As was customary in those years, there were also interactions with the great French Enlightenment tradition, with Diderot and Helvetius both praising Beccaria. In September 1766, Voltaire published a pamphlet that was a glowing commentary of “On Crimes and Punishments”, helping to definitively seal the reputation of the author and his theories.
Beccaria argued for the abolition of the death penalty, disputing its deterrent effect and maintaining that it was only acceptable in the case of a threat to national security. It was for this reason, more than two centuries later in 1982, that he was lauded by Robert Badinter, one of the key figures in the movement to abolish the death penalty under French law, who stated that “until Beccaria, no great voice had spoken up to demand the abolition of the death penalty. For this innovative audacity, all honor is due to him”. Following in the footsteps of this legacy, it was remarked that 2014 has seen 114 states vote in favor of a moratorium on the death penalty, based on an initiative instigated by Italy at the UN.
The participants observed, however, that Beccaria did not seek the elimination of torture and capital punishment on humanitarian grounds, but as symbolic recognition that the state does not have the right to deprive an individual of his or her life, as this would be a breach of the social contract. Hence, Beccaria’s treatise constitutes a veritable “manifesto on criminal policy”, acknowledging – then, as now – that punishment serves a preventive function, and its contention regarding the necessity of certainty and swiftness of punishment remains valid today. It was suggested that Italy’s legal system currently suffers from chronically protracted procedures, and that, accordingly, swiftness in the meting out of justice, which Beccaria held so dear, finds no application in practice. There was therefore a perceived need for urgent reform, to ensure trials of proper length, an overhaul of limitation periods, and a solution to prison overcrowding, the latter being a problem that has essentially gone unresolved since the days when it was exposed by Piero Calamandrei. It is against this backdrop that the Italian government announced at the talk-debate session that it was convening a “prisons commission”, to come up with solutions to a problem deemed no longer tolerable.
The government also announced that measures will shortly be introduced to address existing limitation periods and to ensure trials are kept to a reasonable length. It will also be focusing on computerizing court facilities to speed up proceedings. Furthermore, parliamentary activity in respect of these issues will also be stepped up. It was stressed that the aim of all these initiatives is to streamline the Italian judicial system, as a functional justice system serves the interests of the public at large, but especially of the economy. Beccaria – whose grounding in economics, though perhaps less well-known than his mastery of philosophy and law, was nevertheless very solid –already came to this conclusion more than two centuries ago. In addition to writing a tract on currency, the illustrious Lombard came up with the idea of what today would be called a “wages guarantee fund”, an early form of social welfare which would be developed in the decades that followed right up until the present day.
