Flogging and a Thought Experiment
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Moskos writes a genuinely provocative article to introduce his upcoming book, In Defense of Flogging. By "genuinely provocative," I mean that he really has succeeded in making me ask whether I can defend my views about prison.
No, he does not truly favor flogging. He points out, however, that most of us would choose it over a long prison term:
So is flogging still too cruel to contemplate? Perhaps it's not as crazy as you thought. And even if you're adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhumane form of punishment, how can offering criminals the choice of the lash in lieu of incarceration be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. Of course most people would choose the rattan cane over the prison cell. And that's my point. Faced with the choice between hard time and the lash, the lash is better. What does that say about prison?
I'm not coming up with terrific arguments in defense of my instinctive response. I have an innate revulsion to the idea of flogging. I don't dismiss "innate revulsion" as an important guide, but it would be nice to appeal to an argument that can't immediately be countered with, "Yes, well, I have an innate revulsion to the idea of incarceration."
I'd argue too that prison serves not only to punish, but physically to separate dangerous people from those they might harm. That argument, however, would stand up only to the extent it could be established that flogging was not an effective deterrent. In other words, flogging would be just dandy if it immediately dissuaded lowlifes from recidivism. That argument doesn't really do justice to my intuition that flogging is savage and wrong.
Yet I keep coming back to his point--would I not prefer flogging to a five-year prison sentence?
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Mar '11
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Does this relate to your British public school thread, Claire?
I'm not even going there!
Dec '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
You say that as if they wouldn't be subjected to "flogging type" levels of physical abuse while they're in prison for five years.
At this point, prison has become a place where criminals go to beat and kill other criminals, work out, network, and study how to become a more horrible criminal when they're finally released.
The ones who aren't inclined to undertake the above path either quickly change their minds and then do, or they fail to survive until their release date.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have prisons, I just think it's a bit naive to consider them somehow more humane than a right good beating with a blunt object.
There has to be punishment for breaking the law. It would just be nice if the punishment didn't also entail making the mediocre criminals better.
Maybe caning would have a desirable effect on recidivism, not so much through deterrence, but by denying the low level criminals the night school degree in criminalling they need to break into gooning full time.
Make 'em get their credentials "on the job", so to speak, and maybe they'll croak it in the process.
Edited on Apr 25, 2011 at 10:50pmApr '11
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I emphatically agree with the idea of flogging.
I see nothing inherently wrong with flogging. And I suspect there is a good chance that psychologically the threat of relatively immediate pain over the somewhat vague (if you've never been to prison) threat of eventually going to prison could be highly effective. Couple that with the frequency of people being released early and I think flogging could very well be a working deterrent, particularly to first time offenders. If you got the daylights whupped out of you for stealing a car, it might be more of a deterrent than getting free room and board for a month.
I don't understand why your initial reaction to flogging is an innate revulsion. I was spanked as a child and I don't see this as being much different. When I was younger I was always careful to avoid spanking offenses, while with groundation offenses I was much more likely to weigh the pro's and con's and thus much more likely to commit them. And no, I did not have a TV in my room until after 16 or 17.
Jun '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I consider flogging much less dangerous than most prisons. It's not even a close call. And as for recidivism, that might happen, but it's not going to happen soon. They're not going to want to move a muscle for several days.
Nov '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Flogging as an alternative to incarceration apparently is not a new idea. The U.S. and British Navies used flogging intensively until 1874. The U.S.Navy is said to have ceased in 1850. I think it was the preferred way to punish sailors and soldiers because having them in the brig or the stockade when they were needed elsewhere was not wise.
Think of the money that would be saved by flogging. It must be cheap compared to incarceration. Making it a choice takes the stigma off of it. Has anyone suggested that one already incarcerated could have his sentence commuted by submitting to flogging?
Would women be given the same choice? If not, would they bring a civil rights suit?
Imagine that, suing the government for not giving you your flogging rights.
Apr '11
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
If prison has the affect of training people to be criminals, then surely is it not more important to keep these people capable of influencing others towards criminal activity away from potential pupils in the heretofore innocent public.
To me, protecting innocent people from nefarious influence, is more important than keeping criminal people away from these potential teachers.
Edited on Apr 26, 2011 at 12:15amMay '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
"It does not seem to me that any one who has satisfied himself that an act of his was wrong, and that he never would do it again, would feel the least need or propriety, as between himself and the earthly punishing power alone, of his being made to suffer for what he had done, although, when third persons were introduced, he might, as a philosopher, admit the necessity of hurting him to frighten others. But when our neighbors do wrong, we sometimes feel the fitness of making them smart for it, whether they have repented or not. The feeling of fitness seems to me to be only vengeance in disguise, and I have already admitted that vengeance was an element, though not the chief element, of punishment."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law
Feb '11
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I actually came to a similar conclusion several years ago. Corporal punishment is far more fitting for certain crimes and is not a priori crueler than caging. The chief advantage of caging, so far as I can tell, is that it can give the appearance of commensurability from one punishment to the next. A sentence of 10 years is twice as bad as a sentence of 5 years. Person x’s being sentenced to prison for 5 years is equal to person y’s being sentenced for 5. TeeJaw’s question about flogging women illustrates this point. One naturally finds the idea of flogging a woman more repulsive than that of flogging a man, of flogging a slight man harsher than flogging a large. (Was this, perhaps, once upon a time, the role of a judge: to think an appropriate sentence for this individual? Has the move away from corporal punishment changed the way we think of criminal legislation?)
What tends to be neglected in these thoughts, however, is the history behind the move away from corporal punishment. Due consideration must be given to this possibility: that we tried it and found it wanting.
Nov '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Flogging might be objected to on the grounds that it is "cruel and unusual".
But, as other posters have pointed out, it may be no less cruel than incarceration. It is certainly less cruel than execution, which is permitted in some US states.
Furthermore, if flogging were widely instituted, it would then no longer be unusual. Problem solved.
So, not much refutational traction there.
But here's one idea Claire. Flogging is liable brutalize the aggressor more than incarceration. This is because physical assault facilitates the taking of sadistic pleasure even more than coercive control does.
You can get spectators to gleefully watch a good public flogging. Just try getting them to watch people stare at a wall instead.
Still, here is a perhaps a technical solution: prisoners could be mechanically flogged. Moreover, this way punishment could also be meted out more objectively, and physical damage better managed.
However, this would not get around the problem that sadistic pleasure could be derived, not merely from administering the flogging itself, but from observing its results.
Still, no harm visiting the patent attorney. Even if the invention is ruled unconstitutional in the US, boarding school alumni in the UK may bite...
Jun '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I would love to see certain criminals flogged and even stocked. Drunken drivers come immediately to mind. Shoplifters, joy riders, (I'm tired and it's hard to think) law breakers who's attitudes could be corrected directly might benefit from corporal punishment and public humiliation. Unfortunately, I suspect this would work better in smaller communities were the opinion of one's peers matter.
May '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I'd rather be waterboarded for 30 seconds than go to a 4-hour dinner party. What does that say about waterboarding and/or dinner parties? Not much, I think. Even if there were no physical abuse in prison, I think people would choose a short, intense punishment over the loss of months or years of their lives. That doesn't make either one cruel. Flogging is a non-starter because of it's association with slavery, anyway.
Jun '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Public flogging in the past had a component that would be missing today: public shaming. In the upside-down world of liberalism the person flogged would be the victim not a miscreant. Would you really want to beat someone who suffers the disease of alcoholism? Or beat a black man for anything? The punishment would do nothing more than provide liberal hearts with a chance to bleed (or bleat) in public. Copiously.
Oct '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Flogging versus prison. What's the difference if it takes a year or two, minimum, for the sentence to be carried out. The out of control legal system in this country cannot lead to real justice. Flogging only has the advantage if immediacy is part of the equation.
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I'm with you on that.
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I was really hoping to see a vigorous "anti-flogging" contingent on Ricochet. Can't anyone come up with a better argument than "Flogging, all for it?"
Oct '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Flogging, all for it !
Dec '10
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
I'm your huckleberry.
It seems to be such an easy way out. Is the threat of flogging really going to deter a cold blooded killer? Some of these criminals lead lives that I can't even comprehend. Gang initiations are often much crueler and fiercer than a flogging. Try getting beat by 10 thugs for a couple minutes. I can't imagine that flogging would be any worse.
This strikes me as something that could become a badge of honor among the criminal world. Instead of having tattoos for how many years you've been in prison, you would have tattoos for how many lashes you received.
I can't believe this hasn't been brought up yet. What do you do after the flogging? Just let the criminal walk free? There are some people that have to be locked away.
Although, I'm attacking it on the grounds that it's too weak. I doubt we'll find the opposing argument here.
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I'm with you on that. · Apr 26 at 5:35am
Don't mind me, I'm just writing down a reminder to never invite Claire or PJ to a dinner party.
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I'm with you on that. · Apr 26 at 5:35am
Don't mind me, I'm just writing down a reminder to never invite Claire or PJ to a dinner party. · Apr 26 at 6:13am
You've spent enough time with me to know exactly how much fun I am after 7:00 pm.
Jan '11
Re: Flogging and a Thought Experiment
"Faced with the choice between hard time and the lash, the lash is better. What does that say about prison?"
Freedom is a powerful human impulse. The lash, however harsh, does not affect one's freedom, as prison does. It's not unusual for people to choose all sorts of hardship so long as they retain their freedom.