Italian criminology founded by Ferri rejected moral retribution for deterrence-based punishment

Evidence

Enrico Ferri (1856-1929), penologist and politician, began his political career as a socialist (editor of Avanti! 1900-1905), but rallied to fascism in 1922. He was the most prominent member of the so-called positive school of penology, and the founder of Italian criminology. The main idea behind his penal theories was the rejection of any idea of moral retribution in the punishment of crimes, in favour of the notion of punishment as a deterrent. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2318

Categorization

• XREF: Ferri’s trajectory from socialism to fascism and his positive-school penology prefigure the later alliance between positivist ‘scientific’ criminology and authoritarian politics — relevant to how racialized/classed Others get constructed as dangerous populations.