Dr. Cesare Beccaria As The Father Of Deterrence Theory

Juveniles around the United States are committing crimes every day. When they commit these crimes, they may not know of the consequences that come with committing the crimes until they get caught. These young children or teenagers need to start learning the consequences of committing a crime before they grow older because if they do not learn, they will make their life miserable. The deterrence theory would be a perfect way to keep these young people out of trouble. Deterrence would play a huge role in to getting these young children or teenagers on the right path of their life. If you show them what the consequences would be or even give them real life experience they would be deterred from doing the things they have done in the past. Cesare Beccaria is known as the father of deterrence theory. He suggested that there were three characteristics of punishment that make a significant difference in whether an individual would decide to make the decision to commit a crime. The three characteristics he suggested were swiftness, certainty, and severity. Beccaria said there were two reasons why swiftness of punishment was important. One reason was because there were some offenders spending more years awaiting trial than they would spend for their sentence. He said the faster the offender gets punished for the crime that was committed, the more useful it would be. The second reason he emphasized a swift sentencing was related to deterrence. If people are awaiting their trial for a