Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments and penal reform

Date

1764

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Milan / Italy

Era

Early Modern

Significance

In 1764 the young Milanese thinker Cesare Beccaria published On Crimes and Punishments, the first systematic treatise on penology and a landmark application of Enlightenment reason to law.

Beccaria condemned torture and the death penalty, arguing that punishment should be public, prompt, proportionate to the crime and aimed at deterrence rather than vengeance, and that all citizens are equal before the law. Quickly translated and admired across Europe, the work influenced reformers and enlightened rulers, including Catherine the Great and the Habsburg monarchy, and informed later guarantees of fair trial and humane punishment in the American Bill of Rights. It remains a founding text of modern criminal justice and the movement against judicial torture.

Empires active in 1764

• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE – 1857 CE

Related politics & governance events

• The Declaration of Independence
  4 July 1776
• The United States Constitution drafted and ratified
  17 September 1787
• The storming of the Bastille and the outbreak of the French Revolution
  14 July 1789
• Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War
  October 1648
• The Stamp Act and the crisis of "no taxation without representation"
  March 1765
• Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and the separation of powers
  1748

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

Get it on Amazon →

As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.