The three men established that the prisons during their time were putting minimal effort in trying to rehabilitate the inmates and crime avoidance. However, each one of them had different perspectives on the approaches that were to be taken to curb the problem. The most interesti9ng part is all of them were aimed at ensuring that there is a decline of the population in the prisons while at the same time putting concerted efforts in rehabilitating than inmates rather than just having to punish them severely. The grates contribution by Bentham towards reforming prisons entailed the use of utilitarianism. His proposition of the entailed establishment of a prison comprised of cells that stems away from the central space of supervision. The concept behind his approach is that prisoners do not have any knowledge when they are being watched or not being watched (Joyce, 2018). The behavior of the inmates would, therefore, be automatically regulated. Primarily, they would think that they are under supervision all the time. In his view, the approach would foster better management of the prisons and even make the condition of the inmates much better.
The period between the mid-1800s and late 1700s ids referred to as the period of classical criminology. Beccaria, Bentham, is the founder members of this classical criminology. They asserted that laws are obligated with the mandate of maintaining the social contract. They also concurred that legislators are the only ones in charge of making the laws, for instance, one sufficient authority that governs the rest of the population (Bessler, 2018). The judges should only execute punishment strictly with the provisions of the law. They also agreed that the judges have no moral authority to interpret the rules, rather they should be impartial in delivering their judgments. There is a need for punishment to apply the use of the principle of pain and pleasure; for instance, the kind of sentence issued should be directly proportional to the crime committed. Punishment should be issued based on the acts rather than the actors; thus, there is a need to avoid biases. There is also a need to prevent the use of torture in obtaining confessions. They regarded it as a lousy way of getting real information. Bentham had a strong belief that if laws made most people not feeling happy, then the judges were not active and harmful. On the other hand, if then laws are associated with pleasure, then the rule of law is exemplary.
Reference
Bessler, J. D. (2018). The economist and the enlightenment: how Cesare Beccaria changed Western civilization. European Journal of Law and Economics, 46(3), 275-302.
Joyce, P. (2018). Criminology and criminal justice: a study guide. Routledge.