TUTTO In Defense of Flogging Peter Moskos

In Defense of Flogging

Peter Moskos

Last annotated on Monday September 4, 2017

75 Highlight(s) | 77 Note(s)

Yellow highlight | Location: 12

crazy idea

Yellow highlight | Page: 1

There are 2.3 million Americans in prison. That is too many. I want to reduce cruelty, and flogging may be the answer.
Note:CRUDELTÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 2

Given the choice between five years in prison and ten brutal lashes, which would you choose?
Note:DOMANDA.

Yellow highlight | Page: 4

Taking away a large portion of somebody’s life through incarceration is a strange concept, especially if it’s rooted not in actual punishment but rather in some hogwash about making you a better person (more on that later). But what about prison itself? Prison is first and foremost a home of involuntary confinement, a “total institution” of complete dominance and regulation.
Note:PRIGIONE... UNA DEFINIZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 5

even if you’re adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhuman form of punishment, how can offering the choice be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. So what’s the harm in offering corporal punishment as an alternative to incarceration?
Note:OFFRIRE UNA SCELTA COME PASSO INTERMEDIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 6

Prisons don’t work, but unfortunately neither does traditional opposition to them. Without more radical debate, preachers for prison reform will never be heard beyond the choir. There is no shortage of ideas on such things as rehab, job training, indeterminate sentencing, restorative justice, prison survival, and reentry.
Note:LA PRIGIONE NON FUNGE... L UNICO MODO CHE I RIFORMATORI HANNO PER ESSERE ASCOLTAT DAI CONSERVATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 7

Flogging may indeed be barbaric, but maybe barbarism has a bad rap.
Note:LA CATTIVA REPUTAZIONE DELLE BARBARIE

Yellow highlight | Page: 8

I don’t want to add caning to an already brutal system of prison; instead, I propose an alternative to incarceration, what might be called “flog-and-release.”
Note:ALTERNATIVA NON AGGIUNTA... SIA CHIARO

Yellow highlight | Page: 9

Ten lashes, a little rubbing alcohol, a few bandages, and you’d be free to go home and sleep in your own bed.
Note:DI COSA PARLIAMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 9

Consider the case of Aaron Cohen, a New Zealander arrested with his drug-addicted mother for possessing heroin in Malaysia.
Note:UN CASO IN MALAYSYA

Yellow highlight | Page: 10

It’s just incredible pain. More like a burning—like someone sticking an iron on your bum. . . . Afterwards my bum looked like a side of beef. There was three lines of raw skin with blood oozing out. . . . . You can’t sleep and can only walk like a duck. Your whole backside is three or four times bigger—swollen, black and blue. I made a full recovery within a month and am left with only slight scarring. Emotionally, I’m okay. I haven’t had any nightmares about that day, although I’m starting to dream about the prison.
Note:TESTIMONIANZA. 6 FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 10

you’d be led into a room where an attending physician would conduct an examination to make sure you’re physically fit enough to be flogged, that you won’t die under the intense shock of the cane.
Note:PRE VISITA

Yellow highlight | Page: 11

The punishment would not be a public spectacle but would not be closed to the public. There would be perhaps a dozen spectators, including bailiffs and other representatives of the court, a lawyer, a doctor, perhaps a court reporter, and maybe a few relatives of both parties, including the victim.
Note:SPETTATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 11

the guard takes down your pants and adds a layer of padding over your back (to protect vital organs from errant strokes), the flogging would begin.
Note:IL PARAPALLE X PROTEGGERE ORGANI VITALI

Yellow highlight | Page: 12

the skin at the point of contact is usually split open and, after three strokes, the buttocks will be covered with blood. All the strokes prescribed by the court . . . are given at one and the same time, at half minute intervals. . . . . The stroke follows the count, and the succeeding count is usually made about half a minute after the stroke has landed. Most of the prisoners put up a violent struggle after each of the first three strokes. Mr. Quek [the prison director] said: “After that, their struggles lessen as they become weaker. At the end of the caning, those who receive more than three strokes will be in a state of shock. Many will collapse, but the medical officer and his team of assistants are on hand to revive them and apply antiseptic on the caning wound.”
Note:SINGAPORE

Yellow highlight | Page: 13

once they’ve patched you up, you’d be allowed to leave the courthouse a free man—no striped pajamas, no gangs, no learning from other criminals, no fear. You’d never have to find out what the inside of a prison is like.
Note:I VANTAGGI DELLE FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 15

The prison-abolition movement seems to have died right after a 1973 Presidential Advisory Commission said, “No new institutions for adults should be built, and existing institutions for juveniles should be closed,” and concluded, “The prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved only a shocking level of failure.” Since then, even though violent crime in America has gone down, the incarceration rate has increased a whopping 500 percent.
Note:LA CONTRADDIZIONE: IL CARCERE FALLISCE MA SI COSTRUISCONO PIÙ CARCERI

Yellow highlight | Page: 16

To understand the uselessness of incarceration—to appreciate just how specious the connection between increased incarceration and decreased crime really is—consider New York City. Not only did New York drastically cut crime, it did so while incarcerating fewer people.
Note:UTILITÀ DEL CARCERE... L ESEMPIO DI NY

Yellow highlight | Page: 17

Better policing and massive immigration—not increased incarceration—contributed to New York’s crime drop. In the 1990s the NYPD got back in the crime prevention game: Drug dealers were pushed indoors, and crack receded in general. Also, police focused on quality-of-life issues, the so-called “broken windows.” At the same time more than one million foreign immigrants moved to New York City. Whether due to a strong work ethic, fear of deportation, traditional family values, or having the desire and means to emigrate in the first place, immigrants (nationwide and in New York City) have lower rates of crime and incarceration than native-born Americans. Astoundingly, today more than one in three New Yorkers are foreign born. Although policing in New York City deservedly received a lot of credit for the city’s crime drop, strangely, few people credit immigrants and almost nobody seemed to notice the winning strategy of “decarceration.”
Note:LE SOLUZIONI DI NY

Yellow highlight | Page: 18

From 1970 to 1991 crime rose while we locked up a million more people.
Note:PERIODO 70 91

Yellow highlight | Page: 18

One reason prison doesn’t reduce crime is that many prison-worthy offenses—especially drug crimes—are economically demand-motivated. This doesn’t change when a drug dealer is locked up.
Note:RAGIONI DEL FALLIMENTO... MOLTI CRIMINI SONO DEMAND DRIVEN

Yellow highlight | Page: 19

Prison reformers—and I wish them well—tinker at the edges of a massive failed system. I’m all for what are called “intermediate sanctions”: House monitoring, GPS bracelets, intensive parole supervision, fines, restitution, drug courts, and day-reporting centers all show promise and deserve our full support. But we need much more drastic action. To bring our incarceration back to a civilized level—one we used to have and much more befitting a rich, modern nation—we would have to reduce the number of prisoners by 85 percent.
Note:RIFORMISTI

Note | Page: 19

IL RIFORMISMO NON INCIDE

Note | Page: 20

OBBIETTIVO 85%

Yellow highlight | Page: 20

We could legalize and regulate drugs and also get soft on crime, but that’s also not likely to happen anytime soon.
Note:DEPENALIZZAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 20

we could offer the lash in exchange for sentence years, after the approval of some parole board designed to keep the truly dangerous behind bars. As a result, our prison population would plummet. This would not only save money but save prisons for those who truly deserve to be there: the uncontrollably dangerous.
Note:PRIGIONI A CHI SE LE MERITA

Yellow highlight | Page: 21

Bernard Madoff, famously convicted in 2009 for running a massive Ponzi scheme, is being incarcerated and costing the public even more money. Why? He’s no threat to society. Nobody would give him a penny to invest. But Madoff did wrong and deserves to be punished. Better to cane him and let him go.

Note | Page: 21

CHI NN PUÒ RIPETERE IL CRIMINE... PRIMO CANDIDATO ALLE FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 21

imagine being the victim of a violent mugging. The last thing you remember before slipping into unconsciousness is the mugger pissing on you and laughing. Such things happen. Luckily, police catch the bastard, and he is quickly convicted. What should happen next? What if there were some way to reform this violent criminal without punishing him? In Sleeper, Woody Allen’s futuristic movie from the 1970s, there’s a device like a small walk-in closet called the “orgasmatron.” A person goes in and closes the door, lights flash, and three seconds later, well . . . that’s why they call it the orgasmatron. Now imagine, if you will, a device similar to the orgasmatron called the “reformatron.” It’s the perfect rehabilitation machine for criminals.
Note:X CAPIRE L IMPORTANZA DELLA PUNIZIONE RETRIBUTIVA... INTROSPEZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 22

The cured criminal thanks God, kisses his baby’s mother, and walks out of the courtroom a free man to go home, relax, and think about job possibilities.
Note:c

Yellow highlight | Page: 22

the concept is disturbingly lacking in justice.
Note:ccccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 23

even among those who know the death penalty does not deter crime, support for the death penalty still runs three to one. Deterrence and punishment are separate issues. Punishment is about retribution.
Note:PENA DI MORTE

Note | Page: 23

LA DETERRENZA NON È GIUSTIZIA... ESEMPIO PENA DI MORTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 23

In an ironic twist, we designed the prison system to replace flogging. The penitentiary was supposed to be a kinder and gentler sentence, one geared to personal salvation, less crime, and a better life for all.
Note:L OBIETTIVO INIZIALE DEIL SISTEMA PUNITIVO

Yellow highlight | Page: 24

Before we had prisons, harsh confinement was used alongside corporal punishment. But such incarceration generally had another purpose, such as holding a person until trial, or until a debt was paid. Confinement was a means to an end:
Note:DAPPRIMA FU PUNIZIONE.... IL RINCHIUDERE ERA SOLO UN MEZZO... RETRIBUZIONE FUNZIONE PRIMARIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 27

Today we know that prisons are not hospitals for the criminally ill (though prisons do house many mentally ill people, to horrible effect). At the time, however, many people hoped that we could purge criminality from a person’s system. The mantra of reformers became “treat not the crime, but the criminal.”
Note:I PRIMI RIFORMISTI... PRIGIONE COME OSPEDALE... CACCIARE IL DEMONE E RIEDUCARE... IL CARCERE DIVENTA NECESSARIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 28

Cesare Beccaria, an Italian politician and philosopher, came up with the idea of deterrence in his 1764 Essay on Crimes and Punishments. Beccaria transformed theories of criminality. Contrary to popular beliefs, Beccaria posited that the Devil himself did not actually possess criminals. Instead, said Beccaria, people have free will to act rationally
Note:BECCARIA: STOP PRIGIONE OSPEDALE E VIA PRIGIONE DETERRENZA... SECONDA CORRENTE RIFORMISTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 28

Despite the difficulties of putting Beccaria’s theories into practice, these notions of deterrence and crime prevention form the basis of what is now known as the classical school of criminology.
Note:SCUOLA CLASSICA DI CRIMINOLOGIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 29

In America the British system of execution and harsh flogging gave way to what was supposed to be a softer and reforming system of penitentiaries.
Note:IL RIFORMISMO COMINCIA LA SUA MARCIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 30

Based on Howard’s vision, a small jail in Wymondham, England, was rebuilt in 1787 on the principles of hard labor, solitary confinement, and penance (hence the name “penitentiary”).
Note:I RIFORMISMI CONVERGONO: RIEDUCAZIONE CALVINISTA E DETERRENZA BECCARIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 31

So in 1787 the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons was established by Quaker-raised Benjamin Rush. The Society condemned the jails and public punishments of its time, proposing that isolating prisoners in solitary cells would be more effective than flogging. The key to this belief is a firm and paternalistic conviction that crime is a moral disease.
Note:RIFORMISTI: CONDANNA DELLA PUNIZIONE PUBBLICA... ALTERNATIVA: PENITENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 32

Bentham’s Panopticon, written the same year Rush established the Prison Society, offered “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example . . . all by a simple idea in Architecture!”
Note:BENTHAM E LA SORVEGLIANZA DEI PENITENTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 36

With a half loaf of bread a day for weeks, this “humane” replacement to flogging literally starved men into submission.
Note:COSA HA RIMPIAZZATO LA FRUSTATA?… BUONE INTENZIONI FINITE MALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 40

The goal, prison commissioners said, was to keep prisoners so isolated that if they were in prison on election night, they wouldn’t know who was president of the United States
Note:ISOLARE ISOLARE ISOLARE

Yellow highlight | Page: 48

Martinson’s national fame came later, with a multiauthored, 735-page tome rather academically titled The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treatment Evaluation Studies
Note:NOTHING WORKS

Yellow highlight | Page: 48

His 1974 Public Interest article on the subject, “What Works?,” became known in policy circles as “Nothing Works!”
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 49

Like many reformers, Martinson just wanted effective rehabilitation. But unlike many reformers, Martinson was brutally honest about existing failures.
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 50

even societies that gleefully hurt others rarely if ever placed a human being in a cell for punishment.
Note:NEANCHE LE SOCIETÀ PIÙ CRUDELI HANNO MAI PRODOTTO PRIGIONI

Yellow highlight | Page: 51

Prison is an insidious marriage of entombment and torture. Not only are inmates immured in prison, they are also subjected to never-ending physical and mental agony.
Note:TOMBA E TERTURA

Yellow highlight | Page: 52

Approximately one in twenty prison inmates say they’ve been sexually assaulted
Note:SEX ASSAULT

Yellow highlight | Page: 54

Without gang protection or a long-term committment to solitary confinement, the danger of sexual assault is ever-present.
Note:GANG PROTACTION

Yellow highlight | Page: 56

If you’re stuck in prison, why wouldn’t you take drugs? What else are you going to do?
Note:DROGHE E ALTRI ABUSI

Yellow highlight | Page: 61

In jail people naturally fulfill the role expected of them. Consider Philip Zimbardo’s notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.
Note:AD OGNUNO IL SUO RUOLO

Yellow highlight | Page: 62

Of the more than seven hundred thousand prisoners released each year, two-thirds are rearrested within three years, and half end up back in prison.
Note:RECIDIVA DI MASSA

Yellow highlight | Page: 62

Part of the problem is that not only do prisons not “cure” crime, they’re truly criminogenic:
Note:CURA CRIMINOGENA

Yellow highlight | Page: 67

It’s a sad day when the best-case scenario after getting out of jail is being homeless—but this is reality.
Note:DA CARCERATO A BARBONE... SE VA BENE

Yellow highlight | Page: 77

The survival of mass incarceration can be traced, in no small degree, to the same kinds of economic pressures that once drove slavery itself. Incarceration is a business.
Note:L AFFARE DELLE CARCERI

Yellow highlight | Page: 79

In truth, private prisons rarely save much money. The savings that do exist come mostly from labor; the average pay in private prisons is three-quarters of that found in public prisons.
Note:IL RISPARMIO DEI PRIVATI

Yellow highlight | Page: 86

we have adapted prisons to confine our mentally ill,
Note:UNA SOLUZIONE AI MALATI MENTALI

Yellow highlight | Page: 92

Sometime in the past few decades we seem to have lost the concept of justice in a free society. Now we settle for simple efficiency of process.
Note:MENO EFFICIENZA PIÙ GIUSTIZIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 93

Although the prison system is unarguably broken, many people have yet to acknowledge that the problem is the system itself and not just the way it’s run.
Note:MOLTI INSISTONO A VOLER SALVARE IL SISTEMA

Yellow highlight | Page: 94

No matter how tough we get, because prisons do not punish in a comprehensible manner, incarceration will never satisfy the public’s legitimate desire for punishment.
Note:LA PUNIZIONE DEL CARCERE È INCOMPRENSIBILE

Yellow highlight | Page: 99

If prisons are broken, then so, too, is prison reform.
Note:RIFORME IN PANNE

Yellow highlight | Page: 109

In twenty-first-century America, could we have court-sanctioned flogging? It’s unclear, but it’s not currently prohibited. The Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on the matter, and until it does, we should assume it’s constitutional.
Note:FRUSTARE È COSTITUZIONALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 111

To flog with consent is key.
Note:PARTICOLARE DEL CONSEENSO

Yellow highlight | Page: 113

If you think flogging lets people off too easily, we could debate the appropriate number of lashes.
Note:TROPPO POCA DETERRENZA? DISCUTIAMO IL NUMERO DELLE FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 114

Violence may seem an unsavory alternative to prison, but punishment must by definition hurt in some way, be it emotionally, psychologically, monetarily, or physically. Punishment must cause pain.
Note:ALA VIOLENZA VFISICA VI FA PAURA? IPOCRITI!

Yellow highlight | Page: 114

Physical violence has the advantage of being honest, inexpensive, and easy to understand.
Note:VIOLENZA FISICA... ONESTA ECONOMICA E FACILE DA CAPIRE

Yellow highlight | Page: 124

Along with a fondness for cricket and warm beer, the British exported the lash throughout their colonial empire (though we’ve moved on to baseball and cold beer).
Note:FRUSTATE IN STILE IMPERO... GLI ESPORTATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 125

Both Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Committee criticize flogging as cruel, degrading, and contrary to human rights law.
Note:FRUSTARE... ATTO CONTRO I DIRITTI UMANI

Yellow highlight | Page: 129

At this point the more open-minded reader may like pain as punishment but dislike the symbolism and messiness of flogging.
Note:SOSTANZA E SIMBOLO

Yellow highlight | Page: 129

A machine, perhaps much more than a person, could guarantee consistency of pain
Note:RICORSO ALLE MACCHINE?

Yellow highlight | Page: 130

Consider this 1898 New York Times account of an “electric spanking chair”
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 135

Flogging is indeed very harsh, but it’s not torture—not
Note:NO TORTURA

Yellow highlight | Page: 138

Flogging is refreshingly transparent and honest.
Note:ONESTÀ.... PER QS MEGLIO EVITARE LE MACCHINE

Yellow highlight | Page: 143

Immediacy, proportionality, transparency, and choice are all critical components
Note:COMPONENTI CRITICHE DELLA PENA CORPORALE #####

Yellow highlight | Page: 144

Some offenders do need to be incarcerated and kept away from society. But for the vast majority of criminal suspects, flogging would be a viable option.
Note:FILTRARE I CRIMINALI... SOLO ALCUNI SONO ADATTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 147

Flogging is not a slippery step toward amputation, public stoning, or sharia law. This is not the first step on a path to hell.
Note:ATTENZIONE AL.PIANO INCLINATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 153

the moral qualms, the spattered blood, lawsuits, policy details, and a certain retrograde feeling to the whole proposition.
ELEMENTI TRASCURATI