Criminal Sociology [46]
of the judge, and still more from that carried into execution. In fact it is only natural that punishment should more or less terrify the criminal who has been judged and is about to be condemned; but this in no way proves its efficacy, which should have been displayed by the menace of the law in guarding the prisoner against the crime. Even with the death penalty, there are many instances of condemned persons who, through congenital insensibility, submit to it cynically. Moreover, for such as have been overwhelmed with terror when the moment of execution arrived, the utmost that this fact can prove is that they are so constituted as to give themselves up completely to the impression of the moment, without the energy to resist it. In other words, so long as the punishment is distant and uncertain, they were not terrified, but having always yielded to the impression of the moment, they yielded to the criminal impulse.
For other punishments, also, it is known that punitive methods, even when not contrary to the law, as they sometimes are in Italy, are always less stern than simple folk imagine when they read the codes and the sentences. And criminals naturally judge of punishments by their own experience, that is to say, in accordance with their practical application, and not with the more or less candid threats of the lawmaker.
If we add to vindictive feeling, historic traditions, oblivion of bio-psychic differences of the social strata, the confounding of exceptional laws and ordinary punishments, and of the varying effective force of punishment, the attitude of the public mind and the natural tendency of criminalists to think only of their two syllogistic symbols of crime and punishment--if we further add the easy-going idea of the multitude, that the inscribing of a law in the statute-book is a sufficient remedy for social diseases, we can readily understand how this exaggerated and illusory confidence in punishment is so persistent, and crops up in every theoretical or practical discussion, in spite of the strong refutation which is daily afforded by facts and psychological observation.
All human actions, like the actions of animals, are developed between the two opposite poles of pleasure and pain, by the attraction of the former and the repulsion of the latter. And punishment, which is one of the social forms of pain, is always a direct motive in human conduct, as it is also an indirect guide, by virtue of its being a sanction of justice, unconsciously strengthening respect for the law. But still this psychological truth, whilst it demonstrates the natural character of punishment, and the consequent absurdity of abolishing it as absolutely void of efficacy, does not destroy our conclusion as to the slight efficacy of punishment as a counteraction of crime.
We have only to distinguish between punishment as a natural sanction and punishment as a social sanction in order to see how the really great power of natural punishment almost entirely disappears in social punishment, which in all our systems is but a sorry caricature.
The mute but inexorable reaction of nature against every action which infringes her laws, and the grievous consequences which inevitably follow for the man who has infringed them, constitute a repression of the most efficacious kind, wherein every man, especially in the earlier years of his life, receives daily and never to be forgotten lessons. This is the discipline of natural consequence, which is a genuine educational method, long since pointed out by Rousseau, and developed by Spencer and Bain.
But in this natural and spontaneous form, the punishment derives its whole force from the inevitable character of the consequences. And it is one of the few observations of practical psychology which have been made and repeated by the classical students of crime, that in punishment, and especially the punishment of death, the certainty is more effectual than the severity. And I will add that even a small uncertainty takes away from a pain which we fear, much of its repelling
For other punishments, also, it is known that punitive methods, even when not contrary to the law, as they sometimes are in Italy, are always less stern than simple folk imagine when they read the codes and the sentences. And criminals naturally judge of punishments by their own experience, that is to say, in accordance with their practical application, and not with the more or less candid threats of the lawmaker.
If we add to vindictive feeling, historic traditions, oblivion of bio-psychic differences of the social strata, the confounding of exceptional laws and ordinary punishments, and of the varying effective force of punishment, the attitude of the public mind and the natural tendency of criminalists to think only of their two syllogistic symbols of crime and punishment--if we further add the easy-going idea of the multitude, that the inscribing of a law in the statute-book is a sufficient remedy for social diseases, we can readily understand how this exaggerated and illusory confidence in punishment is so persistent, and crops up in every theoretical or practical discussion, in spite of the strong refutation which is daily afforded by facts and psychological observation.
All human actions, like the actions of animals, are developed between the two opposite poles of pleasure and pain, by the attraction of the former and the repulsion of the latter. And punishment, which is one of the social forms of pain, is always a direct motive in human conduct, as it is also an indirect guide, by virtue of its being a sanction of justice, unconsciously strengthening respect for the law. But still this psychological truth, whilst it demonstrates the natural character of punishment, and the consequent absurdity of abolishing it as absolutely void of efficacy, does not destroy our conclusion as to the slight efficacy of punishment as a counteraction of crime.
We have only to distinguish between punishment as a natural sanction and punishment as a social sanction in order to see how the really great power of natural punishment almost entirely disappears in social punishment, which in all our systems is but a sorry caricature.
The mute but inexorable reaction of nature against every action which infringes her laws, and the grievous consequences which inevitably follow for the man who has infringed them, constitute a repression of the most efficacious kind, wherein every man, especially in the earlier years of his life, receives daily and never to be forgotten lessons. This is the discipline of natural consequence, which is a genuine educational method, long since pointed out by Rousseau, and developed by Spencer and Bain.
But in this natural and spontaneous form, the punishment derives its whole force from the inevitable character of the consequences. And it is one of the few observations of practical psychology which have been made and repeated by the classical students of crime, that in punishment, and especially the punishment of death, the certainty is more effectual than the severity. And I will add that even a small uncertainty takes away from a pain which we fear, much of its repelling