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2
Indirect Legislation § 9
§ 4 Power
[who are as yet innocent there is nothing to be done
in this way there is no proceeding against the those who are as yet innocent:
one can proceed only agains tthe guilty. There
is no preventing mischief in the first instance:
But these processes expedients are rather of the expensive cast:
and if put in practise upon all mankind without distinction, the advantage would
scarcely worth the purchase. TheEmploy'd with advantage
they can be employ'd practised only against upon the guilty: indeed that is upon those
only who have been guilty to such a degree as that the misery requisite
to be applied to
them in the way of punishment
shall without any addition not be sufficient
for this use. It is
in this principle in part
that the politicians rulers of most
states justify the lavish
use which in most nations
is made of the punishment
of death: as if forgetting they forget
that confinement would
might
answer the same purpose.
It is on the same principle
that M. Beccaria
with much better reasonrecommends the occasional
expediency use of the same
punishment in the case of
state offenses, where faction
will sometimes hang upon
a single life.
Upon the whole then
this plan of policy can
seldom with advantage be
employ'd in the first instance:
we
we must wait for its having till it has actually taken place
in one instance before the l it can be worth
while to take this expensive chance of preventing
it in future. In a word it is only in the
ordinary way of direct legislation by in the way of punishment
that guilt delinquency can be attacked with advantage in this quarter:
that is by choosing adapting to each offence [that is in the case where the magnitude
of the mischief will warrant the expensiveness
of the remedy] such punishments as shall
are distinguished by in point of their disabling efficacy. But
this line of policy seems hardly to outstep the
limits of direct and ordinary legislation: it has
accordingly been traced out already noticed in a former
chapter. Ch XV. [Properties] xviii.
Identifier: | JB/087/090/002"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 87. |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::r williams [britannia with shield emblem]]] |
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c. hamilton |
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