Word: beccaria
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Continent, a movement to restrict capital punishment to serious crimes had been under way for decades, largely under the influence of the Italian reformer Cesare Beccaria, who argued that harsh punishments had a brutalizing effect upon society and thus bred crime instead of deterring it. But to the rulers of England, it seemed that capital punishment, even for offenses now considered petty, was necessary for the preservation of law and order. Cried Lord Ellenborough, Chief Justice of England, speaking in the House of Lords in 1810 against a bill to abolish the death penalty for shoplifting: "I am certain depredations...
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