Jeff Jacoby's Bring Back Flogging Essay

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

Satire is a literary technique to reveal the issues of an individual or the current society. One of the prime philosophies of today came about from the novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand, in which Rand incorporates satire to expose real life problems. Her rendition of romantic realism, based upon her objectivist theory, shaped the incongruities of a “hero’s” nature. In Ayn Rand’s satirical novel, Anthem, Rand uses humor, irony, and satire to demonstrate her ideas of romantic realism between her main character, Equality 7-2521, and the society. Her use of humor recognizes Equality’s odd situation and nature, and identifies his view on self-worth and love.

In “Bring Back Flogging”, Jeff Jacoby addresses the problems within America 's criminal justice system. He gives many reasons why imprisonment simply does not work, and suggests that corporal punishment should be used as an alternative. Published in the Boston Globe, a newspaper well known for being liberal, Jacoby provides a conservative view and directs his argument towards those who strongly support imprisonment and view corporal punishment to be highly barbaric and inhumane. However, in order to shed light on our current situation, Jacoby discusses the dangers that we face though our criminal justice system a nd shows concern that imprisonment is doing more harm than good. In effect, Jacoby looks to the past for solutions, and

Between the late 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, crime was generally perceived as a rising lower-class problem which required brutal suppression. For this reason, the criminal justice, particularly in the latter part of the 17th century, became more punitive and coercive: corporal punishments such as flogging, mutilation and execution were increasingly used as predominant sanctions (Braithwaite, 1993). These forms of punishments often took place in public, as the main objective at the time was to put offenders into highly stigmatic shame through brutal humiliation, degradation and out casting (Beattie, 1984).

Speaker: The author presents himself in a witty manner and by doing so it enables him to mock the effects modern life has on its people.

Another issue related to the subject involves whether or not capital punishment actually deters criminals from committing crimes. Most people think that the death penalties primary function is to deter others in the future from committing similar crimes. There is evidence that at times capital punishment does deter. However, there are those or cite evidence or opinion that the capital punishment does not achieve its desired effect. The majority of this paper will focus on whether capital punishment actually deters crime.

     Jeff Jacobys’ essay, entitled “Bring Back Flogging” was, in my sincere opinion, poorly constructed. There are numerous instances where I felt that he had either not supported his premises with valid information or had negated his support in later sentences.

In “Bring Back Flogging”, the author, Jeff Jacoby suggests that people should adopt some of the Puritans tactics to punish criminals instead of putting them in prison. In order to present his claim, Jacoby is based in the use of irony, logos, and ethos. According to Jeff Jacoby a moment of humiliation is better than a couple of years behind the bars. I do not agree with Jeff Jacoby’s argument because the examples he gives and the way he refers to the topic incite to violence, also during the development of the subject he is too contradictory with his own opinions, and his arguments are unclear.

Jeff Jacoby, a law school graduate and Boston Globe columnist, describes in his article “Bring Back Flogging” modern systemic prison failures and offers an alternative punishment: flogging.

Using deductive logic, he mentions Delaware as a state that still used flogging as a form of punishment until a few decades ago, 1972 to be exact. On the contrary, by only having one state to support his claim, it adds less validity. It shows the reader that the majority of the population gave up flogging a long time ago, which implies that the country wanted to rid itself of it. Jacoby could have possibly used a different form of support because it does not convince the audience as much as it could have had he used more evidence. Throughout the essay, he includes pieces of data that instinctively make the reader consider his argument as logical. The downside to this is that the data must appeal to the human race. We have already decided against it before, it will take a lot more than what he is providing if he wants humans to consider reverting back to flogging. There were not many major issues in the essay that hindered his success, but the few that stood out as questionable, are the ones that could have led to losses in

This can be seen throughout the whole text and adds to its wittiness and mystery. The main weapon of the satirist is verbal irony, a figure of speech where words are used to mock a person or thing by conveying a meaning that is the reverse of what the words say. This is evident throughout the entire piece and begins when he proposes his own thoughts on how to conquer the problem of a large amount of poor, starving and

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,

A columnist for the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby, in his article, “Bring Back Flogging” published on the op-ed page on February 20, addresses the issue of the deficiency of today’s criminal justice system and attempts to persuade us to bring back flogging as a punishment for certain crime. However, though his syllogism might arouse the reader and educate them on the need for reform, but it fails to convince the reader that corporal punishment is the best option.

Humour and satire are two concepts that are both wide ranging and diverse, from dark, to light hearted, with each producing a different effect. Humour in the main, is something that is used to please the audience, its function is to invoke laughter amongst its audience. Satire is used to create a comical critical view of the subject at hand, this can range from a light hearted comical way, to a judgemental way, with each style giving the text a different meaning, however this does not mean that satire cannot be humorous, which can evident in the use of parody and irony within texts. Within literature both concepts play an important role to how the text is viewed, humour can include word play, grammatical jokes, to even inside jokes with the author and reader, and with satire, including that of irony and parody, with each style and type delivering humour in its own unique way. These differing styles of humour can be found in a variety of forms including Jasper Forde’s The Eyre Affair (2001), with its silly atmosphere, word play and grammar jokes, and the use of light hearted satire and parody to brighten up the text, and Julian Barnes A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (1989), where there is a more serious atmosphere, with a more critical, satirical eye on history and characters, as well as using irony to achieve its comical effect, and the position of the world. Each text is humorous and satirical in its own right, and with each author using different techniques to

Jacoby’s main argument is that some of imprisonment sentences can be replaced to more inexpensive ways, corporal punishments like a public whipping, since giving imprisonment sentence to petty offenders is not efficient due to its costs. He refers to Puritan’s time so that he can let readers imagine how their punishments were done instantly and did not require costs to keep inmates in prison. However, even though he presents specific numerical information to show that the criminal justice system is not only ineffective but also expensive, I still stay skeptical of his idea since he significantly lacks the explanation why Puritan’s ways are better in a qualitative manner and assumption of the different backgrounds between now and past.