ice repression. Under these circumstances, it is well to take it for
granted that some of the expected crimes will be carried out, for crimes
are not committed at fixed periods after first informing the police. The
damage done by criminality, and especially by political and social
criminality, against which police repression is particularly directed,
will be smaller than that done by the abuse inseparably connected with
police power. In the case of atavistic criminality, prevention does not
mean handcuffing of the man who is about to commit a crime, but devising
such economic and educational measures in the family and administration
as will eliminate the causes of crime or attenuate them, precisely
because punishment is less effective than prevention.

In other words, in order to prevent crime, we must have recourse to
measures which I have called "substitutes for punishment," and which
prevent, the development of crime, because they go to the source in
order to do away with effects.

Bentham narrates that the postal service in England, in the 18th
century, was in the hands of stage drivers, but this service was not
connected with the carrying of passengers, as became the custom later.
And then it was impossible to get the drivers to arrive on time,
because they stopped too often at the inns. Fines were imposed,
imprisonment was resorted to, yet the drivers arrived late. The
penalties did not accomplish any results so long as the causes remained.
Then the idea was conceived to carry passengers on the postal stages,
and that stopped the drivers from being late, because whenever they made
a halt, the passengers, who had an interest in arriving on time, called
the drivers and did not give them much time to linger. This is an
illustration of a substitute for punishment.

Another illustration. In the Middle Ages, up to the eve of our modern
civilization, piracy was in vogue. Is there anything that was not tried
to suppress piracy? The pirates were persecuted like wild beasts.
Whenever they were caught they were condemned to the most terrible forms
of death. Yet piracy continued. Then came the application of steam
navigation, and piracy disappeared as by magic. And robbery and
brigandage? They withstood the death penalty and extraordinary raids by
soldiers. And we witness today the spectacle of a not very serious
contest between the police who wants to catch a brigand, Musolino; and
a brigand who does not wish to be caught.