Dialogue Between Beccaria, Lombroso, Durkheim

CCJ27 – Sociology of Crime | Dialogue: Beccaria, Lombroso, and Durkheim | Assignment #1 - EssayName: Larissa MylonasOUA Student ID: 267240Griffith Student ID: S2711917Due Date: 04th October 2010; 4:00pmWORD LENGTH: 1955 words | |

DIALOGUE
Between Beccaria, Lombroso, and Durkheim Setting:

Three (3) theorists at an undisclosed location; take part in a private book club meeting in which the following four articles are discussed: * “On Crimes and Punishments” by Cesare Beccaria; * “Criminal Man” by Cesare Lombroso; * “The Normal and the Pathological” & “Suicide” by Emile Durkheim.
During the book club meeting, a debate arises over the participant’s views and opinions of crime and punishment; in particular, the use of capital punishment (the death penalty) in the United States of America. Below is the dialogue from the book club meeting.

Beccaria: Welcome all.
Lombroso: Let’s just get this over with.
Beccaria: How about we begin by introducing ourselves.
Beccaria: I’ll go first. My name is Cesare Beccaria; you may refer to me as Beccaria. I was born in 1738, and am the author of many books. In relation to today’s book club meeting, I will be discussing the content of On Crimes and Punishments which I wrote in 1764. Lombroso, would you like to go next?
Lombroso: Fine, if we must. My name is Cesare Lombroso; I was born in 1835 and as you have already done, may refer to me as Lombroso. I too have written quite a few books; one of which, Criminal Man, is in our book clubs reading list.
Durkheim: My name is Emile Durkheim, and I’m happy for you both to call me Durkheim. I was born in 1858. I too am a writer, and the books that I’ve written that we will be addressing today are Rules of the Sociological Method written in 1895 and Suicide, that I wrote two years later (1897).
Beccaria: Ok then, now that that’s out of the way, I hereby open this book club meeting. As the invitation stated we are here to discuss our views and opinions of crime and punishment, in particular the use of capital punishment.
Beccaria: I personally believe that deterrence is the only means of crime prevention. Crime should be viewed as something that needs preventing. I strongly feel my classical approach of using deterrence is the only feasible way.
Durkheim: Crime is normal (Durkheim 1895/1994). It is needed for society to ever move forward.
Beccaria: The only thing crime is, is a menace to society. In no way is crime beneficial to society.
Durkheim: Crime is useful, in that it helps develop change in social morality and reforms in law. It is also the key to society’s progress. In order to make progress, individual originality must be able to express itself... [Even] the originality of the criminal... shall also be possible (Durkheim 1895).
Beccaria: Crime needs to be stopped! And it is to the common interest not only that crimes not be committed, but also that they be less frequent in proportion to the harm they cause society (Beccaria 1767/1994). Therefore, the obstacles that deter men from committing crimes should be stronger in proportion, as the inducements to commit crime are stronger. There must, therefore, “be a proper proportion between crimes and punishments” (Beccaria 1767/1994, p. 284).
Beccaria: Taking away criminals’ liberty through prompt incarceration will deter other would-be criminals not to commit similar crimes, and will also prevent the perpetrator from recommitting the crime again (Beccaria 1764/1994). As a result, crime is then preventable.
Durkheim: A society without crime is impossible (Durkheim 1895/1994).
Durkheim: For crime to not exist, every person would have to have the same sentiments on everything, to the same degree and intensity (Durkheim 1893/1994).
Beccaria: This may be so. However, you appear to be saying that we shouldn’t even be trying to stop crime.
Durkheim: Well I’m sorry Beccaria, but if everyone agreed and believed the same things then, “crime would not thereby disappear; it would merely change its form” (Durkheim 1893/1994, p.85).
Durkheim: If crime by one definition were to be eliminated, then crime itself would only be redefined and shifted toward other behaviours.
Beccaria: Consider this, “the greatest happiness shared by the greatest number” (Beccaria 1767/1994, p.227). Happy are those few nations that have not waited for the slow succession of coincidence and human vicissitude to force some little turn for the better after the limit of evil has been reached, but have facilitated the intermediate progress by means of good laws (Beccaria 1767/1994, p.227).
I maintain that punishment should increase the total amount of happiness in the world. This often involves punishment as a means of reforming the criminal, incapacitating him from repeating his crime, and deterring others (The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2001). The purpose of punishment is to create a better society, not revenge. Punishment serves to deter others from committing crimes, and to prevent the criminal from repeating his crime.

Durkheim: I can see your point of view Beccaria; however I still believe that the criminal plays a definite role in social life. Crime for its part must not be conceived as an evil that cannot be too much suppressed. There is no occasion for self-congratulation when the crime rate drops noticeable below the average level, for we may be certain that this apparent progress is associated with some social disorder (Durkheim 1895/1994, p.87-88).
Beccaria: I think the only way to continue on is to agree to disagree. However, if Durkheim and I can agree on one thing it is that crime is best viewed from a societal level.
Durkheim: Agreed
Lombroso: Disagreed. Crime should be looked at on the individual level. May I join this conversation?
Durkheim: Crime must be viewed on a societal level as crime is a normal occurrence in society.
Lombroso: Then what of my biological foundation? Criminals can be characterised by their physical abnormalities.
Lombroso: Anomalies in the size of the head, eye defects, pouches in the cheek, defects in the thorax, and imbalance of the hemispheres of the brain, ascertain whether a person is criminal (Lombroso 1911). I refer to these people as Atavist; that is the criminals who reproduce in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior animals (Lombroso 1911).
Durkheim: Crime is not the result of what you call “Atavism” (Lombroso 1911). It is the differences in beliefs and values in society that define a crime.
Lombroso: Beccaria, you disagree with Durkheim don’t you. One must assume that you agree with me.
Beccaria: Lombroso, although I don’t agree with Durkheim, I can relate less to your theories of the “atavistic being”. I view crime through society as a whole. You view crime through the individual. I follow the classical school of thinking, and you are a member of the positivist school. You and I have more differences then even Durkheim and I.
Lombroso: I understand that you merely focus on the need to reform the criminal. But, the physical and psychological attributes of a criminal are inherited through the generation. These criminals cannot be reformed.
Beccaria: I don’t know what else I can say to show you that your theories are unjust.
Durkheim: I think that we each stand by our own theories; and no debate is going to convince us otherwise. Therefore I suggest that maybe we review what our thoughts are on the death penalty as a punishment for criminal behaviour.
Beccaria: Deterrence is essential to crime; however “death is neither useful nor necessary” (Beccaria 1767/1994, p.280). History has shown that capital punishment fails to deter determined criminals.

Beccaria: It is not the intensity of punishment that has the greatest effect on the human spirit, but its duration, for our sensibility is more easily and more permanently affected by slight but repeated impressions than by a powerful but momentary action” (Beccaria 1767/1994, p.281).
Lombroso: My initial statement is that the “born criminals cannot escape their inherited taint” (Lombroso in Gould 1989, p.281). However, I admit I do have some belief in Beccaria’ theory.
Durkheim: Lombroso, did you not state in your Criminal Man article, that, “there exists, it is true, a group of criminals, born for evil, against whom all social cures break as against a rock – a fact which compels us to eliminate them completely, even by death” (1911, p.447).
Lombroso: That is true Durkheim, however if you had let me finish before, I more generally favour means other than death as a way of ridding society of its born criminals. I am a strong advocate for humane treatment of criminals. Therefore, in cases of incorrigible criminality, I believe transportation and exile to penal colonies provide a more humanitarian solution than capital punishment (Gould 1981, p.140).
Lombroso: However, please note that I only believe this is a possible solution if “banishment is permanent and irrevocable” (Gould 1981, p.140).
Beccaria: But surely not every crime deserves such severe punishment. Punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed. Only if same crimes attract similar penalties, will imprisonment act as a greater deterrence.
Lombroso: I merely believe that permanent and irrevocable punishment is necessary for those born criminals, those I refer to as atavistic. Removal of these criminals from society is the best thing for them and for society’s own protection. Although, this is my opinion of born criminals I believe treatment of those not born criminal or occasional criminals should be different. My feelings are mutual to those of a colleague that “Penal sanctions must be adapted to the personality of the criminal” (Ferri in Gould 1981, p. 141). Rehabilitation of occasional criminals is a possible solution. But overall, when there are other means available I am completely against capital punishment.
Beccaria: But, there is still no justification for severe punishments. For me, when a punishment quickly follows a crime, then the two ideas of ‘crime’ and ‘punishment’ will be more quickly associated in a person’s mind. Born criminal or not Lombroso. That is as long as the punishment fits the crime. After which, I stand that, the swiftness of punishment has the greatest impact on deterring criminals and others committing crime.
Durkheim: Is it safe to assume that Beccaria you believe that punishment should be enforced according to the crime being committed? And Lombroso, you believe that punishment should be enforced according to the criminal? Is it safe to assume this?
Lombroso: Yes, you may assume that.
Beccaria: Yes, that’s correct.

Durkheim: Then if I may, in contrast to your views, the modern legal codes are quite different, with punishment being less important. Instead, society is concerned with restoration of the original situation, rather than exacting revenge on the offender (Durkheim 1933). “But today, it is said, punishment has changed its character; it is no longer to avenge itself that society punishes, it is to defend itself” (Durkheim 1933, p. 86). Therefore, if I must mention one belief on punishment, it is something a colleague of mine stated; that is that “an offense left unpunished weakens to a degree the social unity; punishment therefore serves the important function of restoring and reconstituting social unity” (Zeitlin 1990, p.264).
Durkheim: My last point before we run out of time is; if crime is disease, then the punishment will be the compensation; if crime is not pathological, the object of punishment cannot be to cure it (Durkheim 1895/1994).
Beccaria: I believe we have exhausted our conversation based on our articles of literature; do any of you have anything else to add?
Lombroso: No, I don’t think so. I think I have exhausted my point of view on crime and punishment.
Durkheim: As have I.
Beccaria: Then if I may I just have one thing to add before we leave. “In order for punishment not to be, in every instance, an act of violence of one of many against a private citizen, it must be essentially public, prompt, necessary, the least possible in the given circumstances, proportionate to the crimes, dictated by the laws” (Lombroso in Bernard, Snipes & Gerould 2010, p. 18).

REFERENCE LIST

Beccaria, Cesare 1767, ‘On Crimes and Punishments’, in Joseph E. Jacoby (ed.) 1994, Classics of Criminology, Waveland Press, Prospect Hills, IL.

Bernard, Thomas; Snipes, Jeffrey & Gerould, Alexander 2010, VOLD’s Theoretical Criminology, Oxford University Press, New York.

‘Cesare Beccaria (1738 – 1794)’ 2001, The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/, viewed 30 September 2010.

Durkheim, Emile 1895, ‘The Rules of the Sociological Method’, in Joseph E. Jacoby (ed.) 1994, Classics of Criminology, Waveland Press, Prospect Hills, IL.

Durkheim, Emile 1897, ‘ Suicide’, in Joseph E. Jacoby (ed.) 1994, Classics of Criminology, Waveland Press, Prospect Hills, IL.

Durkheim, Emile 1933, The Division of Labor in Society, The Free Press, New York.

Gould, Stephen Jay 1981, The Mismeasure of Man, Norton and Company, New York.

Lombroso, Cesare 1911, Criminal Man, Patterson Smith, Montclair, NJ.

Zeitlin, Irving M 1990, Ideology and the Development of Sociological Theory, 4th edn, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.