ABSTRACT
In Colombia, there are wide-ranging research debates on the role of the government in religion, education, the cultivation of letters and the arts, colonization, and material progress for the second half of the 19th century. However, there is less debate about the reforms of criminal systems and the standards for the administration of justice. This chapter focuses on the influence of Jeremy Bentham’s and Cesare Beccaria’s ideas in the construction of a universal system of administration of justice in the legislation on punishment, crime, and prisons in Colombia in the second half of the 19th century. Using writings by Miguel Antonio Caro, Rafael Nuñez, José María Samper, and Florentino González, among others, we reconstruct the roots of economic utilitarianism of the Colombian criminal system in the second half of the 19th century. Moreover, we review the results of the criminal justice system through statistics on judicial processes. The chapter concludes that despite the change in the philosophical foundations of the codes, there is no evidence of significant changes in crime patterns.
