Beccaria’s Theory

Crime and punishment Amy Lynn Sprague Criminology – 3 Crime and punishment While cesare beccaria believed in the need for a criminal justice system and the right of the government to have laws and punishments, he never viewed the current justice system to be a successful one. Beccaria felt that the government and its laws at the time were just a â€Å"few remnants of the laws of an ancient predatory people, compiled for a monarch who ruled 12 centuries ago in Constantinople, mixed subsequently with longobardic tribal customs, and bound together in chaotic volumes of obscure and unauthorized interpreters. He had also felt that the criminal laws should be based on rational thought and not passion. Cesare argued that the threat of punishment controls crime. 1. Do other forms of social control exist? Yes! Other forms of social control exist and not only that without valid and reliable measures of criminal behavior, efforts to conduct research on crime and formulate criminological theories would be futile although some behaviors are handled differently than others. 2. Aside from the threat of legal punishment, what else controls your behavior? A person’s behavior is basically regulated by a sense of what is right and wrong. Society sets behavior expectations that become a part of what is acceptable or not in how we live our lives. Acceptable behavior is reinforced at home during the developmental years of a child. Families play a major role in how individuals consider what behavior is acceptable. For example women, it is not so much society that governs their behavior. For a woman the primary behavior modifier is their inferior brains, which limit their behaviors to cooking, cleaning, producing and raising children, and general. Social norms discourage men from being stay at home dads, expressing emotions, being nurses, cooking, cleaning, etc. Males in society are governed by social expectations. Besides that a liberal justification of punishment would proceed by showing society needs the threat and the practice of the criminal system to control the freewilled and rational human being. (Newson A. , 2011) References Newson, A. (2011). Amy's. Retrieved January 20, 2012, from Nyessay: http://nyessay/law/amys