Flogging…What is it? What purpose does it serve? For those of us who have never heard of flogging, flogging refers to “beating with a whip or strap or rope as a form of punishment” (“Flogging” 1). Throughout the 1600s, flogging was utilized by “Boston’s Puritan Forefathers” (Jacoby 1) as a method of corporal punishment for various crimes. Progressing forward, Jeff Jacoby, columnist for The Boston Globe, provides readers with his view of “Boston’s Forefathers’” system of punishment in his essay, “Bring Back Flogging.” Within the contents of his work, Jacoby describes how flogging was utilized as punishment in its day. One such example he utilizes involves a woman who pleaded guilty to committing adultery. He writes that her punishment was “fifteen stripes severally to be laid on upon her naked back at the Common Whipping post” (Jacoby 1). In his piece, Jacoby argues for the revival of flogging and Puritan style punishment in the United States. As well as this, the author illustrates how imprisonment has become society’s general form of punishment and has now become outdated. Jacoby proposes that in order to cut costs and prevent future crime within first time offenders the turn to flogging must be taken. Jacoby’s logic to his argument is that since crime rates are rising, keeping prisoners locked up is expensive, and “the penal system is choked to bursting” (Jacoby 1), prisons should be done away with and flogging should take the reins as the new form of corporal punishment. Bearing in mind the above, Jacoby’s argument on bringing back flogging is unconvincing for the reason that his assumptions are incoherent and flogging itself is inhumane and could prove to be ineffective.
To begin with, Jacoby’s assumptions can be seen as ill...
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...ffective at all. He does not take into account the fact that flogging could actually cause more crimes in present society. Crimes have evolved and punishment must evolve as well. Reverting back to flogging, a primitive form of punishment, would counterbalance the efficacy of crime prevention. Clearly, times are different. Both people and the crimes they commit have changed and flogging as the popular process of edification for convicted criminals is of the past and jail time is of the present. In actuality, people should be investigating ways to inhibit crimes from occurring rather than seeking out ways to punish people. All in all, criminals whether convicted for murder or tax evasion are still criminals and will serve imprisonment accordingly. To end with, as the 1970s TV series, Baretta, once stated, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” (“Baretta” 1).
In this article, a young American boy, Michael Fay, who lived in Singapore, was convicted of vandalism and was sentenced to a flogging. The author of this article, Mike Royko, was American, and was on Fay’s side, he thinks that a flogging is wrong.
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.
During seventeenth century flogging was a popular punishment for convicted people among Boston's Puritans. Fortunately, those times have passed and brutal and inhuman flogging was replaced by imprisonment. Columnist for the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby in his essay "Bring back flogging" asserts that flogging is superior to imprisonment and advocates flogging as an excellent means of punishment. He is convinced that flogging of offenders after their first conviction can prevent them from going into professional criminal career and has more educational value than imprisonment. He also argues that being imprisoned is more dangerous than being whipped, because the risk of being beaten, raped, or murdered in prison is terrifying high. Unfortunately, Jeff Jacoby made some faulty assumptions and his article "Bring back flogging" is filled with misconceptions.
' The notion that punishment is needed as an example asserts that the punishment for murder, or the punishment any crime for that matter, should be employed as a deterrent and to inspire fear that will prevent others from fulfilling the said crime in the future. This illustrates a depressing and gloomy view of human nature, as being corrupt at its core and that fear remains the only thing that prevents us from committing evil acts. Rather, I believe that laws and the punishments associated with the infringement of laws are an agreement between a citizen and the society they live in about what is appropriate and agreeable behavior that protects the basic rights of all citizens and holds all citizens as equal in front of the law. Thus, if someone kills another person and the circumstances of the crime are not within the previously established laws, then the person should be held responsible regardless of whether one would kill that person if they could help it or
“The question of whether the death penalty is a more effective deterrent than long-term imprisonment has been debated for decades or longer by scholars, policy makers, and the general public” (Radelet & Lacock, 2009).
Punishment, when speaking on serious terms, is socially valuable because it deters criminals from repeating their crimes and may keep others from repeating the same acts. If in fact the deterring effect misses its point, it is the fault of the justice system the all the red tape found behind it. At its current standing, the system is viewed as a joke because no authority is taken, no one believes, let alone fears, the system. Both the lengthy time and the high expense result from innumerable appeals, including many technicalities which have little nothing to do with the question of guilt or innocence. If these wasteless amount of appeals were eliminated or at least controlled, then the procedure would be much shorter, less expensive and more
...l punishment as a just and morally sound method of justice. After all, "An eye for an eye" seemed to be a rationale that many embraced as fair. Now there is an era of closer examination of what is truly just and morally ethical, as well as economically sound. A consequence needs to be fair, humane, and effective. Does capital punishment meet these criteria? There are compelling reasons to change the system we have blindly acclaimed. Hopefully we are in the process of implementing a new way of dealing with an age-old dilemma.
When the our criminal justice system introduced punishments, sanctions for criminal behavior tended to be public events which were designed to shame the person and deter others. These punishments included ducking stool, the pillory, whipping, branding and the stocks. As years progressed, these punishments have slowly started disappear from our penology and capital punishment was introduced. According to Kronenwetter,
In Western cultures imprisonment is the universal method of punishing criminals (Chapman 571). According to criminologists locking up criminals may not even be an effective form of punishment. First, the prison sentences do not serve as an example to deter future criminals, which is indicated, in the increased rates of criminal behavior over the years. Secondly, prisons may protect the average citizen from crimes but the violence is then diverted to prison workers and other inmates. Finally, inmates are locked together which impedes their rehabilitation and exposes them too more criminal
Death penalty might sound like the immoral thing to do; however it’s effective. When a criminal is sentence to the death sentence, it spreads fear between criminals who committed a similar crime. It also, decreases the amount of criminals that were thinking about committing that particular crime. In the article, “The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives” Muhlhausen explains to us how death penalty sa...
The death penalty continues to be an issue of controversy and is an issue that will be debated in the United States for many years to come. According to Hugo A. Bedau, the writer of “The Death Penalty in America”, capital punishment is the lawful infliction of the death penalty. The death penalty has been used since ancient times for a variety of offenses. The Bible says that death should be done to anyone who commits murder, larceny, rapes, and burglary. It appears that public debate on the death penalty has changed over the years and is still changing, but there are still some out there who are for the death penalty and will continue to believe that it’s a good punishment. I always hear a lot of people say “an eye for an eye.” Most people feel strongly that if a criminal took the life of another, their’s should be taken away as well, and I don’t see how the death penalty could deter anyone from committing crimes if your going to do the crime then at that moment your not thinking about being on death role. I don’t think they should be put to death they should just sit in a cell for the rest of their life and think about how they destroy other families. A change in views and attitudes about the death penalty are likely attributed to results from social science research. The changes suggest a gradual movement toward the eventual abolition of capital punishment in America (Radelet and Borg, 2000).
This essay has identified sanctions imposed on offenders including imprisonment and community corrections. Described how punishment is justified with the just desert and deterrence theory. Discussing the rate of individuals being imprison comparted to community, provided rates for assault which shows crime being maintained and community member feel safe enough to allow for this to
"Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time." -- David Grusin and Morgan Ames
Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail? The use of prison as a form of punishment began to become popular in the early 19th century. This was because transportation to colonies had started to decrease; transportation was the removing of an individual, in this case an offender, from its country to another country; usually for a period of seven to ten years and in some cases for ever. During this time prison was now being used as a means for punishment, this was in response to the declining of transportation to colonies. Thus, instead of transporting offenders to other colonies, they were now being locked away behind high walls of the prison.
Punishing the unlawful, undesirable and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has experienced a variety of transformations throughout history. Although the concept of retribution has remained a constant (the idea that the law breaker must somehow pay his/her debt to society), the methods used to enforce and achieve that retribution has changed a great deal. The growth and development of society, along with an underlying, perpetual fear of crime, are heavily linked to the use of vastly different forms of punishment that have ranged from public executions, forced labor, penal welfare and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years. Crime constructs us as a society whilst society, simultaneously determines what is criminal. Since society is always changing, how we see crime and criminal behavior is changing, thus the way in which we punish those criminal behaviors changes.