Re-Reading Beccaria: On the Contemporary Significance of a Penal Classic

About the Author Antje du Bois-Pedain is Reader in Criminal Law and Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Centre for Penal Theory and Penal Ethics at the Institute of Criminology, and Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK.Photograph courtesy of University of Cambridge.Andreas von Hirsch is Emeritus Honorary Professor of Penal Theory and Penal Law at the Cambridge University, and Honorary Professor of Penal Theory at the Law Faculty, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany. Much of his earlier writing has appeared under his anglicised name, Andrew von Hirsch.Shachar Eldar is Professor of Criminal Law at Ono Academic College, Tel Aviv, Israel.Anthony E Bottoms is Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and Life Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Product Description This book considers the way that Cesare Beccaria's slim 1764 volume On Crimes and Punishments influenced policy developments worldwide and over decades, if not centuries, after its publication. For those who turn to Beccaria's work today, the encounter is shaped by that knowledge. Appreciative of his book's dual nature as historical document and repository of ideas, the contributions in this collection address different aspects of the criminal justice theory Beccaria offered his readers and face up to methodological questions raised by meeting a historical text of this kind – unsystematic and by modern standards often under-argued – with modern scholarly conventions in mind.Contributions in the first part of the book engage with Beccaria's 'political theory of criminal justice' through the lenses of political and penal philosophy. How do we get from Beccaria's blending of social-contractarian foundations and proto-utilitarian policy analysis to the concrete set of criminal justice practices Beccaria presents as justified? This leads across to the second part where contributors approach Beccaria's ideas with present-day reforms and developments in mind. Many of his policy proposals and arguments remain significant from our contemporary perspective, their limitations and omissions proving as instructive for the contemporary scholar as their more prescient elements. The third part offers those looking at Beccaria's work today a glimpse into the practical difficulties facing the firebrand author turned public servant during his long career in the Habsburg-Lombardian administration. It puts his work into the broader context of pathways to criminal justice reform in northern Italy, Habsburgian Lombardy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Beccaria's day.