Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments

In 1764 Cesare Beccaria, a 26-year-old nobleman in Milan's reform circle, anonymously published On Crimes and Punishments. At the time, European justice often relied on secret procedures, torture to extract confessions and public executions for many offenses. Beccaria argued that punishment is justified only to protect society and prevent future crimes, not for revenge. Punishments should be proportionate to the harm done, laws should be clear and public, and trials should be prompt.

He argued that the certainty of punishment deters crime more than its severity, condemned torture as both cruel and unreliable, since it tests endurance rather than truth, and argued against the death penalty in most cases. The book was translated into French in 1766 with a commentary by Voltaire and was read by Catherine II, Thomas Jefferson and many reformers. Some contemporaries feared it would weaken order, and the Catholic Church placed it on the Index in 1766; it is often regarded as a founding text of modern criminal justice.