Crimes multiply from the
assurance the guilty are everywhere apt to feel of impunity to crime;
and the more crimes multiply, the greater is the aversion the people
everywhere feel to aid the government in the arrest and conviction of
criminals, because they see more and more the innocent punished by
attendance upon distant courts at great cost and inconvenience, to
give evidence upon points which seem to them unimportant, while the
guilty escape owing to technical difficulties which they can never
understand.[14]
The best way to remove these obstacles is to interpose officers
between the Thanadar and the magistrate, and arm them with judicial
powers to try minor cases, leaving an appeal open to the magistrate,
and to extend the final jurisdiction of the magistrate to a greater
range of crimes, though it should involve the necessity of reducing
the measure of punishment annexed to them.[15] Beccaria has justly
observed that 'Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty
than by the severity of punishment. The certainty of a small
punishment will make a stronger impression than the fear of one more
severe, if attended with the hope of escaping; for it is the nature
of mankind to be terrified at the approach of the smallest inevitable
evil; whilst hope, the best gift of Heaven, has the power of
dispelling the apprehensions of a greater, especially if supported by
examples of impunity, which weakness or avarice too frequently
affords.
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