Criminal Sociology [102]
and repulsive as those by the guillotine, the garotte, the scaffold, or the rifle. (See the Medico-Legal Journal of New York, March and September, 1889.) From the ``Summarised Information on Capital Punishment,'' published by the Howard Association in 1881, I take the following figures on capital punishment in Europe and America:--
Death State. Sentences. Executions. Austria (1870-9) ... ... ... ... ... 806 ... 16 France (1870-9) ... ... ... ... ... 198 ... 93 Spain (1868-77) ... ... ... ... ... 291 ... 26 Sweden (1869-78) ... ... ... ... ... 32 ... 3 Denmark (1868-77) ... ... ... ... ... 94 ... 1 Bavaria (1870-9) ... ... ... ... ... 240 ... 7 Italy (1867-76) ... ... ... ... ... 392 ... 34 Germany, North (1869-78) ... ... ... 484 ... 1 England (1860 79)... ... ... ... ... 665 ... 372 Ireland (1860-79) ... ... ... ... ... 66 ... 36 Scotland (1860-79 ... ... ... ... ... 40 ... 15 Australia and New Zealand (1870-9... 453 ... 123 United States, about 2,500 murders annually--about 100 executions and 100 lynchings annually.
In Finland, between 1824 and 1880 there was no execution. In Holland, Portugal, Roumania, and Italy, capital punishment is abolished by law; and in Belgium virtually. Switzerland also has abolished it, but a few cantons, under the influence of a few atrocious and recurrent crimes, revived it in their codes, but did not carry it out. In the United States it has been abolished in Michigan, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Maine. An inquiry into the legislation and statistics relating to murder in Europe and America was instituted by Lord Granville in July, 1880 and the results were published in 1881. (``Reports on the Laws of Foreign Countries respecting Homicidal Crime.'')
In a manuscript register of executions in the Duchy of Ferrara between 970 and 1870, I found that, excluding the nineteenth century, there were 5,627 executions in 800 years (3,981 for theft, and 1,009 for homicide), that is an average of 700 in each century, in the city of Ferrara alone. And at Rome, according to the records of the Convent of St. John the Beheaded, between 1500 and 1770 there were 5,280 executions, or 1,955 in each century, in the city of Rome alone. Now, if we consider the proportion of population in Ferrara and Rome to that of Italy as a whole, we reach an enormous number of executions in former centuries, which can scarcely have been fewer than four hundred every year.
These were serious applications of the death penalty, to which we certainly owe in some degree the purification of society by the elimination of individuals who would otherwise have swelled their criminal posterity.
In conclusion, if we wish to treat the death penalty seriously, and derive from it the only service of which it is capable, we must apply it on this enormous scale; or else, if it is retained as an ineffectual terror, we should be acting more seriously if we were to expunge it from the penal code, after excluding it from our ordinary practice. And as I shall certainly not have the courage to ask for the restoration of these mediaeval modes of extermination, I am still, for the practical considerations above mentioned, a convinced abolitionist, especially for such countries as Italy, where a more or less artificial and superficial current of public opinion is keenly opposed to capital punishment.
Setting aside the death penalty, as unnecessary in normal times, and inapplicable in the only proportions which would make it efficacious, for the born criminals who commit the most serious crimes, there remains only a choice between these two modes of elimination--transportation for life and indefinite seclusion.
This is the only choice for the positivists; for we cannot attach much importance to the opinion of the German jurists, Holtzendorff, Geyer, and others, who would do away with perpetual imprisonment altogether. Professor Lucchini took up this theory in Italy, saying that the personal freedom of the convict ought to be limited
Death State. Sentences. Executions. Austria (1870-9) ... ... ... ... ... 806 ... 16 France (1870-9) ... ... ... ... ... 198 ... 93 Spain (1868-77) ... ... ... ... ... 291 ... 26 Sweden (1869-78) ... ... ... ... ... 32 ... 3 Denmark (1868-77) ... ... ... ... ... 94 ... 1 Bavaria (1870-9) ... ... ... ... ... 240 ... 7 Italy (1867-76) ... ... ... ... ... 392 ... 34 Germany, North (1869-78) ... ... ... 484 ... 1 England (1860 79)... ... ... ... ... 665 ... 372 Ireland (1860-79) ... ... ... ... ... 66 ... 36 Scotland (1860-79 ... ... ... ... ... 40 ... 15 Australia and New Zealand (1870-9... 453 ... 123 United States, about 2,500 murders annually--about 100 executions and 100 lynchings annually.
In Finland, between 1824 and 1880 there was no execution. In Holland, Portugal, Roumania, and Italy, capital punishment is abolished by law; and in Belgium virtually. Switzerland also has abolished it, but a few cantons, under the influence of a few atrocious and recurrent crimes, revived it in their codes, but did not carry it out. In the United States it has been abolished in Michigan, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Maine. An inquiry into the legislation and statistics relating to murder in Europe and America was instituted by Lord Granville in July, 1880 and the results were published in 1881. (``Reports on the Laws of Foreign Countries respecting Homicidal Crime.'')
In a manuscript register of executions in the Duchy of Ferrara between 970 and 1870, I found that, excluding the nineteenth century, there were 5,627 executions in 800 years (3,981 for theft, and 1,009 for homicide), that is an average of 700 in each century, in the city of Ferrara alone. And at Rome, according to the records of the Convent of St. John the Beheaded, between 1500 and 1770 there were 5,280 executions, or 1,955 in each century, in the city of Rome alone. Now, if we consider the proportion of population in Ferrara and Rome to that of Italy as a whole, we reach an enormous number of executions in former centuries, which can scarcely have been fewer than four hundred every year.
These were serious applications of the death penalty, to which we certainly owe in some degree the purification of society by the elimination of individuals who would otherwise have swelled their criminal posterity.
In conclusion, if we wish to treat the death penalty seriously, and derive from it the only service of which it is capable, we must apply it on this enormous scale; or else, if it is retained as an ineffectual terror, we should be acting more seriously if we were to expunge it from the penal code, after excluding it from our ordinary practice. And as I shall certainly not have the courage to ask for the restoration of these mediaeval modes of extermination, I am still, for the practical considerations above mentioned, a convinced abolitionist, especially for such countries as Italy, where a more or less artificial and superficial current of public opinion is keenly opposed to capital punishment.
Setting aside the death penalty, as unnecessary in normal times, and inapplicable in the only proportions which would make it efficacious, for the born criminals who commit the most serious crimes, there remains only a choice between these two modes of elimination--transportation for life and indefinite seclusion.
This is the only choice for the positivists; for we cannot attach much importance to the opinion of the German jurists, Holtzendorff, Geyer, and others, who would do away with perpetual imprisonment altogether. Professor Lucchini took up this theory in Italy, saying that the personal freedom of the convict ought to be limited