When an individual is rendered unable to work, he must be supported by the state, or rendered dependent upon public charity, and thus fixed as a burthen upon the most benevolent. If the statement of Filangieri is correct, there were constantly in the state prisons of Naples more than forty thousand idle prisoners. The largest manufacturing town in England scarcely employs a greater number of workmen. By the military laws of most countries, deserters are still condemned to death. Subserviency to Reformation.
Reformation implies a change of character and moral dispositions.
Hence those punishments which are calculated to weaken the seductive, and to strengthen the preserving motives, have an advantage over all others with respect to those offences to which they can be applied. There are other punishments which have an opposite tendency, and which serve to render those who undergo them stil1 more vicious. Punishments which are considered infamous, are extremely dangerous in this respect, particularly when applied to slight offences and juvenile offenders. Diligentius enim vivit, cui aliquid integri superest. Such prisons, instead of places for reform, are schools of crime.