"Bring Back Flogging" by Jacoby analysis

Matt Pepin
English 201

“Bring Back Flogging”, is an article by Jeff Jacoby comparing equal corporal punishment of miscreants by Puritans to incarceration of criminals today. Jacoby’s title pretty well sums up his thesis; that corporal punishment is less expensive, less effective, and can be meted out more judiciously to fit the crime. Today we lock them in cages instead, at a rate unsurpassed in the free world. Imprisonment has become our all-purpose punishment for crime and is on the rise because of mandatory minimum sentences and life terms for recidivists. Overcrowding in prisons is responsible for convicted felons being released early or not locked up at all. Jacoby draws on the knowledge of Princeton criminologist when he states that three-quarters of released inmates are on the street with no meaningful probation or parole supervision.
There are several schools of thought on the philosophy of dealing with criminals, Jacoby’s is punishment through retribution and contemporary criminologists use the word rehabilitation, though myself nor Jacoby subscribe to the theory that imprisonment’s primary purpose is rehabilitation.
Jacoby’s purpose in his essay is persuading the reader that corporal punishment that fits the crime is more humane and effective than the degradation of imprisonment. According to Jacoby, imprisonment is; costly ($30,000 per year), turns prisons into a criminal graduate school where convicts emerge more adept, ruthless, and savvy at crime than when they entered; and have become too congested, letting criminals out before their sentence is served; and inmates are subjected to unimaginable horrors.
But much of his essay is a contradiction. He singles out the horrors experienced by young inmates while incarcerated yet he is unhappy with the percentage of offenders who don’t go to prison because it is their first or second offense. His quote, “And while everybody knows that amateur thugs should be deterred before they come career criminals…,” he doesn’t advocate prisons because they will turn into professional criminals. On the one hand he is concerned about the growing population of prisons and on the other hand he is concerned because not enough murderers, burglars, and 1st and 2nd time offenders are going to prison. He cannot be positive that, “If young punks were horse whipped in public after there first conviction, fewer of them would harden into lifelong felons.” This might make young felons more rebellious, may be sanction violence, or lead to an entirely different conclusion than if the present system was abolished or altered.
Jacoby omits much relative material such as the cost of executing a criminal is much more expensive than a term of prison for life. All the appeals before the execution are very expensive. Most crimes are pled down to a lesser offense to alleviate congestion in court convicting people of crimes they didn’t actually commit. Because of our congested system a trial takes four to six months to get on a court docket, and the poor who can’t afford bail or an attorney are incarcerated whether they are guilty or not.
One cannot say that Jacoby handles the subject with “Kids gloves.” He is adamant in his belief and uses many facetious phrases when referring to our present penal system. He does leave the reader unsatisfied and sympathetic that our present system is not working satisfactorily
Jacoby closes his article leaving the question of whether or not imprisonment is less effective, less brutal, or less humiliating than corporal punishment. I believe he answered his own question when he stated that by today’s standards we would consider it a form of torture. We can’t spank children, teachers are on a fine line when they punish a student and the military doesn’t allow physical abuse by instructors during training. Whether we have something to learn form the Puritans is a moot question since our society, even though rampant with violence, does not condone many forms of violence other than sports or wars.