2. The second fundamental principle of the positive system of social defence against crime is that of indemnification for damage, on which the positive school has always dwelt, in combination with radical, theoretical, and practical reforms. Reparation of damage suffered by the victims of crime may be regarded from three different points of view:--(1) As an obligation of the criminal to the injured party; (2) as an alternative for imprisonment for slight offences committed by occasional criminals; and (3) as a social function of the State on behalf of the injured person, but also in the indirect and not less important interest of social defence. <p 218> The positive school has affirmed the last two reforms--the second on the initiative of Garofalo and Puglia, and the third on my own proposal, which, as being more radical, has been more sharply contested by the classical and eclectic schools. In my treatise on ``The Right of Punishment as a Social Function,'' I said: ``Let us not be told that __civil__ reparation is no part of _penal_ responsibility. I can see no real difference between the payment of a sum of money as a fine and its payment as damages; but more than that, I think a mistake has been made in separating civil and penal measures too absolutely, whereas they ought to be conjoined for defensive purposes, in preventing certain particular anti-social acts.'' And again, classifying the measures of social defence (``measures of prevention, reparation, repression, and elimination''), I said in regard to measures of reparation: ``Our proposed reform is not intended to be theoretical merely, for indeed it may be said already that this liability to indemnify is established in the majority of cases; but it should be above all a practical reform, in the sense that, instead of separating civil and penal measures, we shall make their joint application more certain, and even require special regulations to compel the criminal judges, for instance, to assess the damages, and so avoid the delays and mischances of a new trial before the civil judges, and to compel the Public Prosecutor to make an official demand, even when through ignorance or fear there is no action on the part of the injured person, that the criminal should be condemned to make good the loss which he has <p 219>inflicted. It will then be seen that the fear of having to make strict restitution will be a spur to the diligence of the well-to-do, in regard to involuntary offences, whilst for the poor we shall be able to impose work on behalf of the injured person in place of pecuniary damages.''