07-07-2017, 06:37 AM
My response to folks questioning if there are alternative to prisons without being soft on crime:
I raise a heretical idea: Peter Moskos’ 2013 book In Defense of Flogging. I submit part of The Economist’s review, written so much better than I could have done:
“IMAGINE that you—or, if you prefer, a younger, more reckless version of you—committed a crime. A bar brawl, driving home drunk again...getting caught with a more-than-trivial but less-than-kingpin amount of illegal drugs: something, in any event, that got you sentenced to a few years in prison.
And say you were offered a choice: you could either spend those years behind bars, or you could get ten lashes. Certainly painful, probably humiliating, but it would be done under close medical supervision...it would be over in minutes....And you could get on with your life. You may think flogging is barbaric, but is there any question which you would choose if you could? According to Peter Moskos, a sociologist,...“If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it.”
The modern American prison system evolved as an alternative to flogging: penitentiaries were designed to “cure” prisoners...rehabilitating them...On this score, as on most others, it has failed. Indeed, prisons seem to cause more crime than they prevent, hardly surprising when you throw a bunch of criminals together with nothing to do and lots of time...
Some prison inmates are incorrigibly violent and must be kept apart from society, but most are not. They are there to be punished, hence the maxim, “We build prisons for people we're afraid of and fill them with people we're mad at.”
Contrast flogging to giving an offender, say a 22-year-old man, 6 months in prison for his 3rd burglary. Think those 6 months are a wise and a more moderate punishment?
Young man, goofing off a lot, but also works part-time learning how to fix cars, maybe taking a college course; meanwhile he is stealing opportunistically whenever he can. He gets the 6 months term: loses his rental place, must store his car/personal possessions, loses his work and education situations. In he goes.
How does he get back on track when he gets out? Find place to live. With what money? He is in debt for storage. What does he say to a prospective landlord who asks where he last lived? What does he say to prospective employers?
OK, I know flogging won’t fly in the U.S. But concept of alternative punishment is worth discussing.
Remember the punishment for many offenses in 1700s America? Stocks in the public square for 24 hours. Public shaming. Concept: harsh punishment, short duration.
We need to figure something out. Incarceration periods of only 10-14 days--nothing but bread and water? Or offenders free to go but have to wear heavy ankle chains for 2 weeks?
This business of locking up non-violent people up for years at a cost of $30 - $50 K a year and then getting surprised when the paroles do not get their lives in order and re-offend is getting very tiresome.....
http://www.economist.com/node/18864244
I raise a heretical idea: Peter Moskos’ 2013 book In Defense of Flogging. I submit part of The Economist’s review, written so much better than I could have done:
“IMAGINE that you—or, if you prefer, a younger, more reckless version of you—committed a crime. A bar brawl, driving home drunk again...getting caught with a more-than-trivial but less-than-kingpin amount of illegal drugs: something, in any event, that got you sentenced to a few years in prison.
And say you were offered a choice: you could either spend those years behind bars, or you could get ten lashes. Certainly painful, probably humiliating, but it would be done under close medical supervision...it would be over in minutes....And you could get on with your life. You may think flogging is barbaric, but is there any question which you would choose if you could? According to Peter Moskos, a sociologist,...“If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it.”
The modern American prison system evolved as an alternative to flogging: penitentiaries were designed to “cure” prisoners...rehabilitating them...On this score, as on most others, it has failed. Indeed, prisons seem to cause more crime than they prevent, hardly surprising when you throw a bunch of criminals together with nothing to do and lots of time...
Some prison inmates are incorrigibly violent and must be kept apart from society, but most are not. They are there to be punished, hence the maxim, “We build prisons for people we're afraid of and fill them with people we're mad at.”
Contrast flogging to giving an offender, say a 22-year-old man, 6 months in prison for his 3rd burglary. Think those 6 months are a wise and a more moderate punishment?
Young man, goofing off a lot, but also works part-time learning how to fix cars, maybe taking a college course; meanwhile he is stealing opportunistically whenever he can. He gets the 6 months term: loses his rental place, must store his car/personal possessions, loses his work and education situations. In he goes.
How does he get back on track when he gets out? Find place to live. With what money? He is in debt for storage. What does he say to a prospective landlord who asks where he last lived? What does he say to prospective employers?
OK, I know flogging won’t fly in the U.S. But concept of alternative punishment is worth discussing.
Remember the punishment for many offenses in 1700s America? Stocks in the public square for 24 hours. Public shaming. Concept: harsh punishment, short duration.
We need to figure something out. Incarceration periods of only 10-14 days--nothing but bread and water? Or offenders free to go but have to wear heavy ankle chains for 2 weeks?
This business of locking up non-violent people up for years at a cost of $30 - $50 K a year and then getting surprised when the paroles do not get their lives in order and re-offend is getting very tiresome.....
http://www.economist.com/node/18864244