In reality, solitary confinement makes of a human being either a stupid
creature, or a raving beast. And "s'io dico il vero, l'effeto nol
nasconde"--if I speak the truth, the facts will also reveal it--for
criminality increases and expands, honest people remain unprotected, and
those who are struck by the law do not improve, but become ever more
antisocial through the repeated relapses. And so we have that contrast
which I mentioned in the beginning of my lecture, that the theoretical
side of criminal science is so perfected, while criminal conditions are
painfully in evidence. The inevitable conclusion is the necessity of a
progressive transformation of the science of crime and punishment.
OF CRIMINOLOGY.
II.
We saw yesterday in a short historical review that the classic cycle of
the science of crime and punishment, originated by Cesare Beccaria more
than a century ago, was followed in our country, some twenty years
since, by the scientific movement of the positive school of criminology.
Let us see today how this school studied the problem of criminality,
reserving for tomorrow the discussion of the remedies proposal by this
school for the disease of criminality.
When a crime is committed in some place, attracting public attention
either through the atrocity of the case or the strangeness of the
criminal deed--for instance, one that is not connected with bloodshed,
but with intellectual fraud--there are at once two tendencies that make
themselves felt in the public conscience.
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