The primal crime, the relations of crime and punishment to the Oedipus conflict and the accompanying reactions of fear and guilt, the rôle of sadistic and masochistic impulses, the significance of confession, the attitudes and reactions of society, judge and hangman to the offender, punishment inadequate as a deterrent.

The author looks forward to a day when belief in the reliability of evidence will have gone by the board, a confession will be of interest solely for the light it throws on the psychology of the criminal who makes it, the notion of responsibility will have been discarded, and pedagogy will have destroyed penology.

It will be for education, oriented by analysis, and starting from the cradle, to open the way to the crime-free state.