Bring Back Flogging Analysis

In Jeff Jacoby’s essay, Bring Back Flogging, he discusses the modern day justice system, and the ways in which he believes it should change. Jacoby’s stance on the topic is that United States of America should bring back flogging as an alternate to jailing felons. Jacoby never actually states this view in a thesis, but it is implied through the evidence given and the general attitude of the essay. Jacoby begins the essay with an anecdote from the 17 th century. Jacoby says that Bostonian Puritans would often use flogging as a form of punishment for various different crimes as oppose to other forms of punishment. He also notes that the Puritans would do other things such as branding with hot irons so that the felon is known. This anecdote is

the nature of punishment the Puritan’s would endure. In the first chapter, the Puritan lifestyle is

Imprisonment is one of the primary ways in which social control may be achieved; the Sage Dictionary of Criminology defines social control as a concept used to describe all the ways in which conformity may be achieved. Throughout time imprisonment and its ideas around social control have varied. Imprisonment has not always been used for punishment, nor has it always thought about the prisoners themselves. However when looking at imprisonment it is important to consider the new penology. Therefore, it needs to be clear what the new penology is. The new penology is said, not to be about punishing individuals or about rehabilitating them, but about identifying and managing unruly groups in society. It is concerned with the managerial

Without the use of these statistics, Jacoby would not be able to suggest such a solution and effectively convey his point. As a result, Jacoby proves that through his research, he is qualified to make his arguments against prisons.

The setting took place at the time when the English immigrated to North America with the belief that the English church was not strict enough. Because the immigrants were extremely religious, they had formed a new church known as Puritan Christianity. In addition, the Puritans believed that there was no separation between the church and the justice system. One must follow the Ten Commandments strictly, or else they will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The reverends or the judges, those who were responsible for resolving any legal matters, were said to be the ones pulling through God’s will. Ultimately, the punishments brought upon the accused were extreme, as they were either publicly whipped, had their ears removed, or were ordered to be hanged.

Jacoby’s argument of flogging attempts to show how it can be more productive over the conventional method of punishment seemingly the only way, imprisonment. His beliefs are that public whippings will prevent youths and first time offenders from becoming lifelong felons. The benefits deduced from his argument for flogging assuming it proves to be conclusive would be such. Lowering the rate of felons in jail, freeing up space for the more violent offenders. The appalling estimated amount of thirty thousand a year per inmate would be saved. A public whipping would not be associated with respect and sign of manhood or status symbol that prison serves for many offenders. Flogging he believes would deter many of the first time offenders and youth along with preventing them from being repeat and long time offenders. The pain, scars, and embarrassment of public whippings would far exceed the value or risk reward benefit of doing a petty crime thus forcing people to think about their actions before they did it. Jacoby contends that he is unsure whether being whipped is more degrading that being caged. At the end of his essay he draws attention to the point of the terrible risk of being raped in prison as an argument in favor of replacing imprisonment with flogging.

During the early 1600s Puritans migrated to the New World in hopes of starting a colony where religion placed god and church in the center of their lives. From there many citizens suffered from the strict consequences of their sins. Punishments ranged from public humiliation, being hanged, or shunned. In the books The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter they show just how damaging the Puritan culture could be on society.

“Punishment for such serious sexual crimes could be severe. Thomas Granger of Plymouth, a boy of seventeen or so, was indicted in 1642 for buggery "with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey." Granger was hanged; the animals, for their part in the affair, were executed according to the law, Leviticus 20.15, and "cast into a great and large pit that was digged for the purpose for them, and no use was made of any part of them” (Cox 1). Present day and Puritan communities use physical consequences as a result of unlawful actions. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore use similes and atmosphere to show that physical consequences result from unlawful actions.

The pressure and consequences of puritan lifestyle is shown in “their creed forbade anything resembling a theater , vain enjoyment, They did not celebrate christmas, or holidays from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer”. This quote shows how the puritans society suppresses individuality. To the extent that most human desires were evil , even salem foulk believed that the virgin forest was the devils last preserve. What makes this puritan lifestyle such a burden was the predilection . ”Minding others people's business was time honored among the people of salom”. This created the suspicions that would lead to the trials .

     Jeff Jacoby seems accustomed with using words as tools for undermining that which he opposes. By using the word “cage” frequently, he ascribes a negative connotation to the act of imprisoning people. He successfully taunts us with images of defenseless animals locked within inhospitable quarters, and hopes that the image will fuel the readers’ probable fear of human rights violations. Another statement within the fourth paragraph, which I see as an attempt to fool people, is when he says, “ Crime is out of control, despite the deluded happy talk by some politicians.” This sentence come out sounding as if it were a fact, when in actuality it is his opinion based on feelings rather than data. I also see an attempt to discount the authority of politicians by calling them deluded. Again there is an absence of support available for either of these two opinions.

The article begins by stating that the puritans came to America to set a model for the Anglican Church. In order to accomplish this, the puritans had to have many laws that were supposed to be met with harsh punishment. Among these laws were many

To begin with, at the start of his article, Jeff Jacoby mentions old punishments, horrible punishments, pursued by Puritans, but at the same time

Going to jail, i.e. being “caged,” is viewed as one of the most horrible events of a person’s life. Further, only the scum of the Earth go to jail and no person in their right mind would be happy to be labeled as a former inmate. Furthermore, Jacoby presumes that “for many offenders, there is even a certain cachet to doing time -- a stint in prison becomes a sign of manhood, a status symbol” (Jacoby 2). Where is the writer getting this fact? One could argue that going to jail is viewed as degradation in a person’s manhood. As well as this, Jacoby assumes that flogging will “prove a lot more educational than 10 years' worth of prison meals and lockdowns” (Jacoby 2). Truth be told, a public whipping may trigger rage within the individual. Contrary to this, jail time may cause the person to settle down and realize what they have done wrong. In addition, the individual would recognize that “10 years worth of prison meals and lockdowns” is 10 years of their life wasted. Also, Jacoby presupposes that flogging can be utilized as the new general form of punishment for all crimes. For instance, when directing a question to his readers, Jacoby states: “Instead of a prison term, why not sentence at least some criminals -- say, thieves and drunk drivers -- to a public whipping?” (Jacoby 2). At this juncture, Jacoby is in the wrong yet again. He assumes that thieves and drunk drivers have committed the same crime when in reality they have not. Ultimately,

In this chapter, Brown provides an overview of the main themes and key arguments presented in the six cases throughout the text and emphasizes the importance of developing a new understanding the role of penal spectatorship in punishment. The main conditions of the failure of the work of punishment—the weak relationship between penal spectators and punishment—are social distance, which creates voyeuristic attitudes towards punishment as it is experienced through the media, prison tours, and the visual accounts of torture in war prisons, social anxieties caused by late modernity, leading to frameworks of blame and the exclusion of minority populations, and potentiality.

The Author Jack Kerouac said, “In seeking to severely penalize criminals society by putting the criminals away behind safe walls actually provide them with the means of greater strength for future atrocities glorious and otherwise.” In the position that prison reform is not justified and shouldn’t be ruled in favor of, that I feel compelled to negate today’s resolution. Resolved: Prison reform is not justified. For clarification of today’s round, I offer the following counter definitions. To begin with, the word prison reform is defined as the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system. In addition to that, the term not justified is defined as something that is not shown to be right or reasonable. The highest value within today’s round is efficiency and it is defined as performing or functioning in the best possible way with the least waste of time and effort. Efficiency is most important in today’s round because it shows how prisons are functioning in the way that they are supposed to, and they are providing the prisoners will all of their necessities such as education as well as food. The best criterion for evaluating this resolution is effectiveness and it is defined as successful in producing a desired or intended result. It best achieves my value of efficiency because it clearly shows how useful it is and how it gets the job done respectively.