“Bring Back Foolishness”
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.
The essay begins by drawing forth images of Puritan punishment. He cites two instances of punishment, which were particularly torturous and radical in nature. He then draws a comparison between this inhumane punishment and imprisonment by stating with irony that, “Now we practice a more enlightened, more humane way of disciplining wrong doers: we lock them up in cages.” His use of the word “cages” was an attempt to vilify the enclosurement of human beings and to compare this treatment of human beings, to the caging of other animals. Although his position is clear from the first glance at the title, he poses us with a dilemma, he immediately denounces his acceptance of imprisonment with his use of irony and at the same time he proposes a solution which he has radicalized. This early attempt at discounting imprisonment by comparing it with an extreme form of the punishment he is proposing, simply leaves the reader with a negative feeling towards both forms of punishment rather than bolstering his view.
The third paragraph of this essay is primarily concerned with persuading the reader that the rate of imprisonment is on the rise, and that this form of punishment is now the form of choice in the United States. He cites the statistic,” 1.6 million Americans are behind bars today. That represents a 250 percent increase since 1980, and the number is climbing.” Lets look at this piece of information and analyze the value of such a statement. Foremost, he says “ 1.6 million Americans…” the key word here is Americans. Most readers of U.S origin in my opinion take this word “Americans” to mean people whom live in The United States. The truth of the matter is that the word Americans refers to those people whom live on either of the American continents. This means that Canadians, Mexicans, and Colombians are among those whom can be polled for this statistic. This statistic turns out to be misleading, when it is obvious that he is implying that these 1.6 million people are in U.S. prisons. Another fl...
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Near the end of his column, Jacoby begins to grow desperate for support. This is illustrated in paragraph eight. He brings up the topic of gun control and speaks more or less against “ gun control fanatics” in this paragraph. I feel that this was an attempt to sway gun owners to his argument, and conversely, this issue has no place within this column. In addition, he closes his column by saying that the Puritans sanctions in relation to punishment were “ humiliating and painful, but quick and cheap. Maybe we should adopt a few. “ I find it humorous that he feels “quick and cheap” are foremost qualities that punishment should adhere to.
In conclusion, I felt that this column was written as a piece of trickery. It was devised to fool average people into agreement. I also felt that anyone with mild intelligence and critical reasoning skills could easily punch an incalculable number of holes in his arguments. So, did he achieve his goal? I believe that this piece of writing could easily win over half of the U.S population, but that doesn’t speak well for his writing necessarily. If I haven’t made it obvious enough, I disliked this column, and hope he can be more sly next time.
In the article “Bring Back Flogging” Jeff Jacoby writes that prison inmates are given a disservice more than people who used to be flogged in the 1600s. Flogging was a punishment that used for a wide variety of crimes and was usually done publicly with the victim being whipped an appointed number of times. Jacoby writes that flogging is a more educational experience than going to jail because it is an experience that the criminal will never forget. He goes on to say that another reason why prisons are obsolete is because they are so expensive and often times the prisoners do not come out reformed. He claims that prisons are a place that criminals can sharpen their skills and learn from each other so that they can perform even more heinous acts. Not only are inmates becoming better criminals but they also see their crimes as “status symbols” (197) the more despicable the crime the more respect from other inmates. The author writes that if the punishment for even small crimes were as severe a flogging then the measure of status would, over time, disappear. The article “Bring Back Flogging” by Jeff Jacoby writes about an unpopular topic through rational
Every civilized society makes laws that protect its values, and the society expects every single citizen to obey these laws. Whenever a citizen of a certain society breaks one of these laws, the rulers of the society dish out punishments they dim fit for the kind of crime committed. With this kind of justice system in place, criminals are either locked up in prison cells, whipped, or exiled from the society. In the essay, “Bring Back Flogging”, columnist Jeff Jacoby argues that flogging is much more superior to imprisonment and should be brought back as a method of punishing crime offenders like the Puritans did in the past. He is convinced that the shame associated with flogging would prevent offenders from going into crime professionally. Jacoby believes that whipping criminals has more educational value compared to locking them up in cells and that it saves a lot of money. Throughout the essay Jacoby attempts to build ethos even though it fell apart due to misconceptions. He relied mostly on the use of pathos by appealing to his reader’s emotions and using this as a base ground for his logos.
Jacoby uses many claims about how crime in the United States has grown and the how faulty America’s justice system currently is. One claim said that citizens pay around “$30,000 per inmate each year” (Jacoby 197). This grasps the reader’s attention by connecting their life to the problem; it is their money, a lot of their money, being used to imprison these criminals. The rates have increased on inmates since the 1980s by over 250% (Jacoby 197). Jacoby declares that the prison system is terrible; he uses accurate and persuading evidence.
In “Bring Back Flogging”, Jeff Jacoby argues why the current criminal justice system in America is not effective or successful. As a solution, he suggests that America should bring back the old fashioned form of punishment once used by the puritans, flogging, as an alternative to imprisonment (198). This article originally appeared in the op-ed section of the Boston Globe newspaper. Therefore, the primary audience of this article is people who want to read arguments about controversial topics and have probably read some of his other articles. His argument that the current criminal justice system is not working is extremely convincing. He appeals to pathos and uses statistics to prove that thesis and to persuade the audience.
Jacoby has been with the Boston Globe since 1987 as a columnist, and has received the following awards: the Breindel Prize in 1999, and the Thomas Paine Award in 2004. Before he worked for the Boston Globe he briefly practiced law and was a commentator for WBUR-FM. Based on this information, it shows that he not only does his research on the history of flogging and how it could be beneficial, but shows that he has knowledge regarding the topic. He also, throughout the essay, explains how corporal punishment can be effective because the lack of efficiency that incarcerating criminals shows. He addresses the opposition that corporal punishment is a faster and more cost effective process but backs up his argument using information about the amount of crime committed in jails too.
In “The Death Penalty” (1985), David Bruck argues that the death penalty is injustice and that it is fury rather than justice that compels others to “demand that murderers be punished” by death. Bruck relies on varies cases of death row inmates to persuade the readers against capital punishment. His purpose is to persuade readers against the death penalty in order for them to realize that it is inhuman, irrational, and that “neither justice nor self-preservation demands that we kill men whom we have already imprisoned.” Bruck does not employ an array of devices but he does employ some such as juxtaposition, rhetorical questions, and appeals to strengthen his argument. He establishes an informal relationship with his audience of supporters of capital punishment such as Mayor Koch.
In the 21 first Century, the United States still has an extremely large number of individuals in the penal system. To this day, the American country still contains the highest prison population rate in the world. Although mass incarceration rates are extremely high, decreases in this number have been made. Since the first time since the 1970s, the imprisoned population has declined about 3 percent. This small step seemingly exemplifies how a vast majority of individuals who becoming aware of these issues and performing actions to decrease these numbers. In the Chapter 13 of James Kilgore’s Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time, he asserts how individuals who oppose mass incarceration
Imprisonment VS flogging within the world, comparing the amount of criminals from today to 100 years ago, it is assumed that the numbers have gone up drastically. In “Bring Back Flogging” by Jeff Jacoby, he starts his essay off with giving out the history of flogging, beginning with what the criminal did and then explaining the type of punishment that the criminal would receive. While reading “Bring Back Flogging” it is shown how one would get beaten for blasphemy while one would be put into prison today. At the end of “Bring Back Flogging,” Jacoby then tries to convince the audience why flogging is a more beneficial punishment rather than prison. In “Bring Back Flogging” Jacoby does have some very convincing points for why flogging should
Lappin, H. G., & Greene, J. (2006). Are prisons just? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 51-98). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
He suggests flogging, but he gives no evidence as to why flogging would be more effective. Since Jacoby does not consider any other alternatives to prison such as community service, loss of privileges, or in extreme cases, exile, his argument that flogging is the best alternative is unconvincing to the reader. Also, he fails to define flogging or give proof that physical punishment would lower the high crime rate in the United States. Thus, while his article raises compelling concerns about the American prison system, Jeff Jacoby fails to persuade his audience that flogging is the best alternative to
Mass incarceration did not occur in light of significant increments in wrongdoing but instead given a system of strategic decisions that the country has made. A similar straightforward answer will address the system question of how to stand up to the adverse effect of mass imprisonment on communities of shading (Mauer). Making this stride decreasing mass incarceration will efficiently affect these communities since they have disproportionally experienced the increments in captivity. Furthermore, for any individual who may stress, there is no proof to propose that a move far from the abnormal state of incarceration, which portrays the United States more than some other country on the planet, will bring about a considerable increment in wrongdoing. Another essential approach to address the issues for communities of shading is to lessen the own racial and financial isolation that keeps on causing problems for social life in the United States. In fact, going for this objective will put more noteworthy difficulties on policymakers and people in general alike. At last, an ideal approach to lessen the security outcomes and the impacts of increased cases of imprisonment and their resulting pessimistic has implications for people of shade is to decrease the rate of individuals being jailed and to make an all the more equitable
According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.
He first puts forth the two mainstream arguments against capital punishment and then organizedly refutes each standpoint with credible explanations. By illustrating there are “many other jobs that are unpleasant”, he easily indicates the flaw and weakness of first argument asserted by the opposite side without much refutation and statistical evidence. In addition, in order to disprove the second argument, he proposes that death penalty is not established to deter other potential criminals but to relieve. He employs great length of humor, logos and ethos to introduce and exemplify this new concept of “katharsis” which is defined as a health and positive way to “let off steam”. Thus, the act of punishing the murders can be interpreted as “justice is served” in this case instead of “cold-blood killing” and the audiences get the feeling of satisfaction because it is a part of their human nature. In the later discussion, he also mentions that it is extremely cruel and immoral that people are put in the death house just for simply torture. By having both side perspectives, the readers are more convinced and become more acceptable to Mencken’s ideas.
Have you ever wondered why people are so interested to learn about the suffrage of others? Over twenty-five years, the population of prisoners has nearly sextulped. Reaching about 1.7 million since 1996, which is almost equal to the population to Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in the nation (Elliott Currie). All we focus on is how they did it? and why? In other words, many people interpret crime as entertainment, and don’t think about the negative effects taking place in the world or even more that individual. In some cases the innocent are being accused of unlikely punishment but how do they determine? Considerably, the death penalty has been the topic of discussion these past years. This so called “penalty” is becoming the prime consequence in most cases. I think that the use of the death penalty as punishment is wrong because of the psychological effects it has on prisoners, time spent on death row in cases of innocents, and the costly outcome.
Kathie Snow’s article talked about the power of language and labels, and this reminded me of a project that I completed in my Visual Arts class. The project was created because of research completed by Dr. Caroline Leaf, in which she described how different thoughts and words affect the brain. Another aspect of Kathie Snow’s article in which she reveals that the real problems are attitudinal and environmental barriers, this brought to my remembrance, a paper that I wrote for my English class titled Passion for Prisoners. In my paper, I wrote, “the malicious attitude that Americans have cultivated toward prisoners contributes to the ineffective treatment towards them.” These are just a couple concepts that I have found interesting, but it took a couple times of reading this article to come to this