Running head: DEATH PENALTY AND CRITICISMS The Death Penalty and Criticisms of Beccaria’s work Prichett University of AlabamaAbstractThe purpose of this paper is to discuss Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments, with emphasis on Beccaria’s views on the death penalty and the many criticisms that surrounds his work. Beccaria had extreme views against the death penalty, but he contradicted his views several times. This led to the criticism of his work and many of his views of society of the Enlightenment period. There were some who said the Beccaria did not write On Crimes and Punishment, this along with other criticisms will be address below. The Death Penalty and Criticisms of Beccaria's Work The purpose of this paper is to discuss the death penalty and the many criticisms surrounding Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments. Key points in Beccaria’s life according to Adler, Mueller, and Laufer (2000):Cesare Bonesana, Marchese di Beccaria (1738-1794), was rather undistinguished as a student. After graduating with a law degree from the University of Pavia, he returned home to Milan and joined a group of articulate and radical intellectuals. Disenchanted with contemporary Europeans society, they organized themselves into the academy of fists, one of many young men’s clubs that flourished in Italy as the time. Their purpose was to discover what reforms would be needed to modernize Italian society. In March 1763 Beccaria was assigned to prepare a report on the prison system. Pietro Verri, the head of the academy of fists, encouraged him to read the works of English and French philosophers-David Hume (1711-1776), John Locke (1632-1704), Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771), Voltaire (1694-1778), Montesquieu (1685-1755), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Another member of the academy, the protector of prisons, revealed to him the inhumanities that were possible under the guise of social cont...
