Cesare Bonesano Beccaria | Biography

Cesare Bonesano Beccaria was an eighteenth-century Italian philosopher of law and economics. His writings on crime and punishment were enormously influential in both academic and government circles well into the nineteenth century. Beccaria's views influenced U.S. criminology. Thomas Jefferson drew much of his proposed criminal law reforms for Virginia from Beccaria. A product of the Enlightenment, Beccaria valued rationality and believed that the law could be applied more efficiently to the problem of crime.

Beccaria was born on March 15, 1738 in Milan, Italy. The son of an aristocratic family, Beccaria as a young boy was sent to Parma to study with Jesuits. He graduated from the University of Pavia in 1758 with a law degree, upon which Beccaria returned to Milan and became part of its literary society.

Beccaria wrote his first pamphlet on monetary reform in 1762 and began his major work on criminal law the next year. Though he had no background in the administration of criminal law, Beccaria published Essay on Crimes and Punishment in 1764 to international acclaim. The book was translated into several languages; the first American edition was published in 1777. Thomas Jefferson was an avid reader. His journals reflect that he copied 26 passages from Beccaria's treatise. Jefferson used it in drafting proposed criminal law reforms in Virginia. In addition, Jefferson named the book as one of the six most important works on civil government.

The work was the first concise, systematic statement of the principles that govern criminal punishment. Although much of the book drew on previous thinkers, including the French philosopher Montesquieu, its strength and originality came from Beccaria's criticisms of traditional thinking about punishment. He attacked the medieval worldview that sanctioned barbaric practices that included torture. In addition to criticizing cruel punishments, Beccaria attacked secret proceedings and judicial corruption. He argued that criminal penalties should only be severe enough to deter persons from committing crimes. Any punishment that went beyond this deterrent level must be judged excessive.

Beccaria also proposed that criminal law is not the state's means of repression but is instead an instrument of liberty. Liberty can only be maintained if the excesses of the individual are contained. Moreover, legitimacy and efficiency are linked in criminal law. Thus, the law must be administered in a rational way that produces predictable and speedy imposition of punishment. Certainty of punishment rather than severity of punishment produced a more effective criminal justice system. Beccaria's insight proved to be enduring, as modern criminologists found that the swift administration of punishment produces the greatest deterrent effect. In fact, Beccaria's views on most criminal law subjects continue to be debated within the field of modern criminology.

In his writings, Beccaria contended that disproportionate penalties, ambiguous criminal laws, and unwritten judge-made law hurt the efficient operation of the criminal law. In addition, Beccaria took a stand against capital punishment, a stand that put him in a distinct minority during the Enlightenment. He believed the death penalty was an "example of barbarity" that encouraged rather than deterred crimes. In the late 1700s, Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician, championed many Beccarian reforms, calling the death penalty the "natural offspring of monarchical governments." Modern opponents of the death penalty look to Beccaria as the father of the abolitionist movement.

After the publication of Essays on Crimes and Punishment, Beccaria led a productive life, though no other work came close to this book in terms of mass appeal. In 1768 he accepted the chair in public economy and commerce at the Palatine School in Milan. During his two years at the school, Beccaria presented a series of lectures that established him as a pioneer in economic analysis. The lectures, which were published posthumously in 1804 as Elements of Public Economy, discussed ideas such as the division of labor and the relations between food supply and population that were later made famous by the English economists Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus.

Beccaria was appointed in 1771 to the Supreme Economic Council of Milan. He remained a public official for the rest of his life and applied the same searching analysis to public policy. Beccaria became involved with monetary reform, labor relations, and public education. A report he made on a system of measures eventually influenced the adoption of the metric system in France. In 1790 he was a member of a committee that advocated the reform of civil and criminal law in Lombardy. Beccaria died on November 8, 1794, in Milan.