to the sentence the formula that the criminal is responsible for the
injury and the costs to another authority. But the process of law puts
off this compensation to an indefinite time, and if the victim succeeds
a few years after the passing of the sentence in getting any action on
the matter, the criminal has in the meantime had a thousand legal
subterfuges to get away with his spoils. And thus the law itself becomes
the breeding ground of personal revenge, for Filangieri says aptly that
an innocent man grasps the dagger of the murderer, when the sword of
justice does not defend him.

Let us say at this point that the rigid application of compensation for
damages should never be displaced by imprisonment, because this would be
equivalent to sanctioning a real class distinction, for the rich can
laugh at damages, while the proletarian would have to make good a
sentence of 1000 lire by 100 days in prison, and in the meantime the
innocent family that tearfully waits for him outside, would be plunged
into desperate straits. Compensation for damages should never take
place in any other way than by means of the labor of the prisoner to an
extent satisfactory to the family of the injured. It has been attempted
to place this in an eclectic way on our law books, but this proposition
remains a dead letter and is not applied in Italy, because a stroke of
legislator's pen is not enough to change the fate of an entire nation.

These practical and efficient measures would be taken in the case of
lesser criminals. For the graver crimes committed by atavistic or
congenital criminals, of by persons inclining toward crime from acquired
habit or mental alienation, the positive school of criminology reserves
segregation for an indefinite time, for it is absurd to fix the time
beforehand in the case of a dangerous degenerate who has committed a
grave crime.