Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764): Against Torture

On Crimes and Punishments (Dei delitti e delle pene), published in 1764 by the young Milanese aristocrat Cesare Beccaria, is the most influential Enlightenment book on criminal justice. It condemned torture and the death penalty and argued that punishment should be certain, proportionate and based on clear public laws. Within a few years it had been translated across Europe and helped inspire major legal reforms.

Background: justice in the 18th century

Criminal justice in most of Europe was harsh and arbitrary. Laws were a confusing mixture of old statutes, customs and judges’ interpretations. Suspects could be tortured to extract confessions, accusations could be secret, and punishments, including mutilation and public execution, varied widely for similar crimes and often depended on social rank.

Enlightenment writers had already begun to question this system. Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), argued that penalties should fit crimes, and the Calas affair of 1762 showed how torture and prejudice could lead to the execution of an innocent man.

Beccaria and the Milanese circle

Cesare Beccaria was born in Milan, then under Austrian Habsburg rule, on 15 March 1738. He studied law at Pavia and joined a circle of young reformers around the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri, known as the Accademia dei Pugni (Academy of Fists). The group published the journal Il Caffè from 1764 to 1766.

The Verris encouraged Beccaria to write on criminal law, and Alessandro, who worked as a prison official, supplied information. Beccaria wrote the book in 1763–1764. It was printed anonymously in Livorno, in Tuscany, in July 1764, to avoid the censors of Milan.

The main arguments

Beccaria based his argument on the idea of a social contract. People give up a small portion of their liberty to the state for the sake of security, and the state’s right to punish extends no further than is necessary to protect that agreement. Punishment that goes beyond necessity is tyranny.

He held that laws should be clear, written and known to all, and that only legislators, not judges, should define crimes. Punishments should be proportionate to the harm done to society and the same for nobles and commoners. He stressed that the certainty and speed of punishment deter crime more than its severity.

Beccaria condemned torture as both cruel and irrational. It punished people before they were found guilty, and it tested physical endurance rather than truth, so the strong guilty might go free while the weak innocent confessed.

He also argued against the death penalty. He reasoned that no one would agree to give the state power over his own life, and that a long sentence of penal servitude would deter more effectively than a single moment of execution. He allowed only two exceptions: when a prisoner’s survival threatened the security of the nation, as in times of anarchy, or when execution was the only way to deter others.

His work popularised the phrase “the greatest happiness shared among the greatest number” as the purpose of laws, an idea later central to Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism.

Reception and influence

The book was an immediate success. The French translation by André Morellet, published at the end of 1765 and dated 1766, rearranged the chapters and spread the book across Europe; Voltaire wrote a commentary on it in 1766. Beccaria visited Paris that year and was celebrated by the philosophes, though he returned home early and unhappy. In 1766 the Catholic Church placed the book on the Index of Forbidden Books.

Rulers took notice. Catherine the Great drew heavily on Beccaria, as well as Montesquieu, in her Nakaz (Instruction) of 1767 for a new Russian law code, and invited him to Russia, which he declined. On 30 November 1786 Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany issued a new penal code abolishing the death penalty and torture, the first modern state to do so. Austria under Joseph II largely restricted capital punishment in 1787, and France abolished the last forms of judicial torture in 1780 and 1788.

In America, John Adams cited Beccaria in defending British soldiers after the Boston Massacre in 1770, and Thomas Jefferson copied passages into his notebooks. In Britain, Bentham acknowledged his debt to Beccaria.

Beccaria himself became professor of political economy in Milan in 1768 and later a senior official in the Austrian administration of Lombardy. He died in Milan on 28 November 1794. His grandson was the novelist Alessandro Manzoni.

Timeline

• 1738, 15 March: Cesare Beccaria is born in Milan.
• 1764, June: The first issue of the journal Il Caffè appears in Milan.
• 1764, July: On Crimes and Punishments is printed anonymously in Livorno.
• 1765, December: André Morellet’s French translation is published.
• 1766: The book is placed on the Index of Forbidden Books; Beccaria visits Paris.
• 1767: Catherine the Great’s Nakaz draws on Beccaria’s ideas.
• 1786, 30 November: Tuscany abolishes the death penalty and torture.
• 1794, 28 November: Beccaria dies in Milan.

Why it matters

Beccaria’s short book gave clear, practical form to Enlightenment ideas about justice. Principles now taken for granted in many countries, such as the presumption of innocence, the ban on torture, proportionate punishment and equality before the law, owe much to his arguments, and his case against the death penalty still shapes debate today.