The female offender / by Cæsar Lombroso and William Ferrero.

  • Lombroso, Cesare, 1835-1909.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The female offender / by Cæsar Lombroso and William Ferrero. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cious principle that the offender is an ordinary man, that each offender must be dealt with on exactly the same footing if he has committed the same offence. On this principle all offenders convicted of the same offences must be subjected to the same length of sentence, the same penal treatment, the same punitive regulations in every shape and form. This idea finds expression from time to time in popular outcries against the inequality of sentences. It is seen in the newspapers that one person is sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for an offence of the same nature and gravity as another person who is only sentenced to six days. The offences are in all essential respects the same, but the sentences are absurdly different. It is immediately assumed that there has been some miscarriage of justice, and a great deal of popular indignation is the result. In many cases there can be no doubt that the popular instinct is right. Existing methods of penal treatment do not admit of the application to any great extent of sentences of unequal length for offences of a similar character. Our penitentiary systems are based upon the principle of uniformity of treatment for all offenders. In this respect they resemble our penal laws and are like them equally barren of good results. As long, therefore, as we have almost exactly the same kind of prison treat- ment for all sorts and conditions of offenders, so long will public opinion be to a large extent justified in protesting against the unequal duration of sentences for offences of a similar nature and gravity. But, apart from the considerations which have just