CESARE BECCARIA [1738-1794] was an Italian Enlightenment thinker and jurist. He was known as the father of criminal and penal theory, based on this groundbreaking title.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Chronology; Biographical glossary; Note on the texts; Bibliographical note; On Crimes and Punishments; Frontispiece; To the reader; Introduction; 1. The origin of punishment; 2. The right to punish; 3. Consequences; 4. The interpretation of the laws; 5. The obscurity of the laws; 6. The proportion between crimes and punishments; 7. Errors in the measuring of punishments; 8. The classification of crimes; 9. Of honour; 10. Of duels; 11. Public peace; 12. The purpose of punishment; 13. Of witnesses; 14. Evidence and forms of judgement; 15. Secret denunciations; 16. Of torture; 17. Of the exchequer; 18. Of oaths; 19. Of prompt punishments; 20. Violent crimes; 21. The punishment of the nobility; 22. Theft; 23. Public disgrace; 24. Parasites; 25. Banishment and confiscations; 26. Family feeling; 27. Lenience in punishing; 28. The death penalty; 29. Of detention awaiting trial; 30. Trials and prescriptions; 31. Crimes difficult to prove; 32. Suicide; 33. Smuggling; 34. Of debtors; 35. Asylums; 36. On setting a price on men's heads; 37. Attempted crimes, accomplices and immunity; 38. Leading interrogations, depositions; 39. Of a particular kind of crime; 40. False ideas of utility; 41. How to prevent crimes; 42. The sciences; 43. Magistrates; 44. Public awards; 45. Education; 46. Pardons; 47. Conclusion; To Jean Baptiste d'Alembert; To André Morellet; Inaugural Lecture; Reflections on the Barbarousness and the Civilisation of Nations and on the Savage State of Man; Reflections on Manners and Customs; On Luxury; Index.