Dei Delitti E Ddelle Pene

In 1764 Beccaria published a brief but justly celebrated treatise Dei Delitti e Ddelle Pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"), which marked the high point of the Milan Enlightenment. In it, Beccaria put forth the first arguments ever made against the death penalty. He had different views on the death penalty.

Beccaria had two guidelines that stated the severity of punishment was wrong. One of them saying the state does not possess the right to take lives. Second, saying that capital punishment is neither a useful nor a necessary form of punishment. Basically he is fully against capital punishment, he also stated that in the end god will be the person who will do the punishing.

Cesare Beccaria made a statement about capital punishment. Now that were in the 20th century the death penalty is rarely used. In our own state of Rhode Island we don’t have the death penalty, our punishments are jail time or prison for life. Other states may still go by capital punishment but you don’t really hear too much about it. Beccaria’s views and our views are very similar because we don’t have capital punishment. Cesare’s ideas or beliefs should be the foundation of our punishment system. His ideas were very good and they all made sense. There was nothing that was stupid or anything that didn’t go along with good guide lines. If capital punishment was really in affect people would or could be killed for the smallest of crimes. Keeping our punishments the way there are would be a good decision. Changing them could cause a lot of people to rebel and this could lead to a big riot. If it wasn’t for Cesare Beccarria we could have a totally different punishment system.