Criminal Sociology [92]
demand, even when through ignorance or fear there is no action on the part of the injured person, that the criminal should be condemned to make good the loss which he has inflicted. It will then be seen that the fear of having to make strict restitution will be a spur to the diligence of the well-to-do, in regard to involuntary offences, whilst for the poor we shall be able to impose work on behalf of the injured person in place of pecuniary damages.''
Shortly afterwards Garofalo wrote: ``In the opinion of our school, for many offences, especially slighter offences against the person, it would be serviceable to substitute for a few days' imprisonment an effectual indemnification of the injured party. Reparation of damage might become a genuine penal substitute, when instead of being, as now, a legal consequence, a right which can be enforced by the rules of civil procedure, it would become an obligation from which the accused could in no way extract himself.''
Of all the positive school, Garofalo has insisted most strongly on these ideas, enlarging upon them in various proposals for the practical reform of procedure.
The principle has made further progress since the speech of M. Fioretti at the first Congress of Criminal Anthropology (Rome, 1885), which adopted the resolution brought forward by MM. Ferri, Fioretti, and Venezian: ``The Congress, being convinced of the importance of providing for civil indemnification, in the immediate interest, not only of the injured party, but also of preventive and repressive social defence, is of opinion that legislation could most expeditiously enact the most suitable measures against such as cause loss to other persons, and against their accomplices and abettors, by treating the recovery of damages as a social function assigned to its officials, that is to say, to the Public Prosecutor at the bar, to the judges in their sentences, to the prison officials in the ultimate payment for prison labour, and in the stipulation for conditional release.''
The classical principle that indemnification for loss caused by an unlawful act is a purely civil and private obligation of the offender (like that created by any breach of contract!), and that in consequence it ought to be essentially distinct from the penal sentence which is a public reparation, has inevitably caused the complete oblivion of indemnification in every-day judicial practice. For the victims of crime, finding themselves compelled to resort to the courts, and fearing the expense of a civil trial to give effect to the sentence of damages and interest thereon, have been driven to abandon the hope of seeing their loss actually and promptly compensated. Hence the necessity for some paltry compromise, which has to be accepted almost as a generous concession from the offender, together with the revival of private vengeance, and a loss of confidence in the reparatory action of social justice.
Even in the scientific domain it has come about that criminal experts have abandoned the question of indemnification to the civil experts, and these in their turn have almost suffered it to pass into oblivion, inasmuch as they always regarded it as belonging to matters of penal law and procedure.
It is only by the radical innovation of the positive school that this legal custom has received new energy and vitality.
I do not, however, intend in this place to concern myself with indemnification from the first point of view, namely, the forms of procedure necessary to render it more strict and effectual, such as the official demand and execution by the Public Prosecutor, even when no action is brought by the injured party; the fixing of the damages in every penal sentence; the immediate lien and claim upon the goods of the condemned person, so as to avoid the pretence of inability to pay; the paying down of the sum, or a part of the salary or wages of solvent defendants; compulsory labour by those unable to pay; the assignment of part of the prison wages for the benefit of the victims; the payment of all or most of the damages
Shortly afterwards Garofalo wrote: ``In the opinion of our school, for many offences, especially slighter offences against the person, it would be serviceable to substitute for a few days' imprisonment an effectual indemnification of the injured party. Reparation of damage might become a genuine penal substitute, when instead of being, as now, a legal consequence, a right which can be enforced by the rules of civil procedure, it would become an obligation from which the accused could in no way extract himself.''
Of all the positive school, Garofalo has insisted most strongly on these ideas, enlarging upon them in various proposals for the practical reform of procedure.
The principle has made further progress since the speech of M. Fioretti at the first Congress of Criminal Anthropology (Rome, 1885), which adopted the resolution brought forward by MM. Ferri, Fioretti, and Venezian: ``The Congress, being convinced of the importance of providing for civil indemnification, in the immediate interest, not only of the injured party, but also of preventive and repressive social defence, is of opinion that legislation could most expeditiously enact the most suitable measures against such as cause loss to other persons, and against their accomplices and abettors, by treating the recovery of damages as a social function assigned to its officials, that is to say, to the Public Prosecutor at the bar, to the judges in their sentences, to the prison officials in the ultimate payment for prison labour, and in the stipulation for conditional release.''
The classical principle that indemnification for loss caused by an unlawful act is a purely civil and private obligation of the offender (like that created by any breach of contract!), and that in consequence it ought to be essentially distinct from the penal sentence which is a public reparation, has inevitably caused the complete oblivion of indemnification in every-day judicial practice. For the victims of crime, finding themselves compelled to resort to the courts, and fearing the expense of a civil trial to give effect to the sentence of damages and interest thereon, have been driven to abandon the hope of seeing their loss actually and promptly compensated. Hence the necessity for some paltry compromise, which has to be accepted almost as a generous concession from the offender, together with the revival of private vengeance, and a loss of confidence in the reparatory action of social justice.
Even in the scientific domain it has come about that criminal experts have abandoned the question of indemnification to the civil experts, and these in their turn have almost suffered it to pass into oblivion, inasmuch as they always regarded it as belonging to matters of penal law and procedure.
It is only by the radical innovation of the positive school that this legal custom has received new energy and vitality.
I do not, however, intend in this place to concern myself with indemnification from the first point of view, namely, the forms of procedure necessary to render it more strict and effectual, such as the official demand and execution by the Public Prosecutor, even when no action is brought by the injured party; the fixing of the damages in every penal sentence; the immediate lien and claim upon the goods of the condemned person, so as to avoid the pretence of inability to pay; the paying down of the sum, or a part of the salary or wages of solvent defendants; compulsory labour by those unable to pay; the assignment of part of the prison wages for the benefit of the victims; the payment of all or most of the damages