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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: application of the law which is most appropriate to the
perpetrator of the crime, according to his more or less anti-
social characteristics, both physiological and psychological.
From Beccaria onward, penal law developed by reaction against the
excessive and arbitrary severity of the Middle Ages--a reaction
which led to a progressive decrease of punishments. Similarly
official penal procedure in the nineteenth century has been, and
continues to be, a reaction against the medival abuses of the
inquisitorial system, in the sense of a progressive increase of
individual guarantees against the domination of society.
As we considered it necessary in the interests of social self-
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