2.2 Classical and Neo-Classical Theory

The classical school (Beccaria, Bentham — the 1760s-80s enlightenment): the crime as the free choice — the rational actor's deliberate act (the hedonistic calculus: the pleasure's pursuit, the pain's avoidance); Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764) — the exam's anchor: the legality (no crime without law), the proportionality (the punishment to the offence, not the offender), the certainty-and-celerity over severity (the deterrence's craft), the punishment's prevention-purpose (not the vengeance); Bentham's utilitarianism (the greatest happiness; the pain's economy — the punishment only where it prevents more pain than it inflicts). The penology's face: the fixed sentences, the equal liability, the deterrence — the criminal law's modern foundations. The neo-classical school (the 19th-century modification): the free- will's qualification — the partial responsibility of the young, the insane, the coerced (the mitigating categories); the proportionality's softening (the individual circumstances' partial entry); the compromise's character: the classical structure kept, the human exceptions carved.