Cesare Beccaria, a major contributor to the classical school of criminology, was born in Milan, Italy, on March 15, 1738, and died in 1794. Born an aristocrat, he studied in Parma and graduated from the University of Pavia.3 In 1763, the protector of prisons, Pietro Verri, gave his friend Beccaria an assignment that would eventually become the essay “On Crimes and Punishments.” It was completed in January, 1764, and first published anonymously in July of that year. The article caused a sensation, but not everybody liked it. The fact that it was first published anonymously suggested that “its contents were designed to undermine many if not all of the cherished beliefs of those in a position to determine the fate of those accused and convicted of crime.... [An] attack on the prevailing systems for the administration of criminal justice, ...it aroused the hostility and resistance of those who stood to gain by the perpetuation of the barbaric and archaic penological institutions of the da