punizioni

Difesa della frustata.

Ho sempre accarezzato l'idea delle pene corporali per certi crimini anche se so che quasi tutti sarebbero contrari a una loro reintroduzione. Qui mi chiedo in che modo il carcere sia realmente diverso? Perché lo consideriamo un passo decisivo verso la civiltà? In fondo, una percentuale altissima di detenuti subisce violenze esplicite da parte di altri detenuti. Queste percosse sono anche peggio di quelle formali inflitte da un boia. Inoltre, poiché le percosse pubbliche sono più immediate rispetto alla sentenza, sono anche più efficaci poiché chi commette un crimine in genere non pensa agli effetti a lungo termine. Tra i benefici personalmente considero anche una "virilizzazione" della società, ne abbiamo bisogno in epoca di decadenza. Oggi, il nostro sistema di giustizia penale funziona molto bene... per i carcerieri, ovvero noi: ci consente di sentirci persone a posto. Chi entra in carcere ha la vita rovinata ma tutto avviene lontano dai nostri occhi e dal nostro cuore, non su una pubblica piazza. Non è uno spettacolo pubblico che ci fa venire la nausea, quindi quando gli stupri e i pestaggi avvengono a porte chiuse, quando le vite delle persone vengono rovinate da detenzioni prolungate, non ci sentiamo responsabili. Questo vale soprattutto per i giovani per i quali il carcere, oltre che fonte di afflizione, è vera scuola del crimine. Se una persona rinchiudesse le persone nel suo scantinato con criminali violenti per molto tempo, lo considereremmo davvero peggiore rispetto a chi si limita ad una fustigazione lasciando poi libera la vittima di proseguire la sua vita come crede?

P.S. Proposta: una pena accessoria nelle nostre carceri potrebbe essere quella di servire solo cibi vegani. Qui mi aspetto l'appoggio entusiasta degli animalisti: quante vite animali potrebbero essere salvate!!!

https://benthams.substack.com/p/our-intuitions-about-the-criminal

Apologia della frusta

Meglio un anno in prigione o tre brutali frustate?

Da parte mia nessun dubbio: opto senza esitare per le frustate… e poi a casa di corsa a dormire nel mio letto.

Un mesetto di cure e medicazioni, l’attesa che si riformi la nuova cute, un paio di notti insonni col culo come una bistecca violacea non mi farebbero certo desistere.

E, se permettete, non mi fermo alla mia personale preferenza, ho la presunzione di affermare che la maggior parte degli interpellati mi seguirebbe sulla medesima strada.

E’ davvero una “pazza idea”? Non credo. Sta di fatto che un’ introspezione di tal fatta è alla base di ogni difesa accettabile della pena corporale.

Chi nel 2017 tenta un’apologia delle frustate lo fa solo perché desidera solo un sistema punitivo meno crudele.

Cosa c’è che non va’ in questo anelito?

Andateci voi in galera a convivere con criminali  irredimibili, a ricevere le loro proposte “indeclinabili”, a subire violenze sessuali ripetute.

Sottoponetevi voi a questo distacco fatale dalla vita lavorativa. Anzi, dalla vita normale in genere.

In posti del genere se entrate malandrini, uscirete criminali. Se entrate criminali, uscirete criminali incalliti.

E chi una volta fuori da quel girone infernale si ritrova barbone di strada, deve accendere un cero alla Madonna e baciarsi i gomiti.

La soluzione carceraria è un fallimento: voluta in luogo delle punizioni dai fautori della deterrenza e della rieducazione, non rieduca e non produce deterrenza, è solo una costosissima tortura prolungata che ha effetti benefici sul crimine solo quando sequestra in massa la popolazione a rischio, che è quasi 1/3 della popolazione tutta (vedi USA).

Possiamo considerarla una soluzione eugenetica più che sociale.

I riformatori, con le loro proposte di “mitigazione” vengono sbeffeggiati dal fiero conservatore. Chi puo’ dargli torto?: lo spettacolo di chi s’indigna per un condono e poi plaude un’amnistia è rivoltante. Mancano le basi per uno scambio fruttuoso.

Scommetto però che anche il conservatore più crudele sarebbe solleticato all’idea di una “mitigazione” fondata sulla frustata. La frustata, in altri termini, getta un solido ponte tra posizioni distanti. La frustata è portatrice di dialogo.

Se la frustata è un sensato atto di pietà, chi delinque dovrebbe perlomeno avere il diritto di sceglierla come pena alternativa.

Allo stesso tempo la frustata non lede il nostro senso di giustizia. Anzi, anche il più accanito colpevolista che assiste all’esecuzione di una pena corporale se ne torna a casa appagato nello spirito.

Prendiamo un caso spinoso della contemporaneità: l’immigrazione clandestina. Come difendere in modo efficace la causa a me cara del clandestino? Solo garantendo punizioni immediate e ben visibili a chi sgarra, sappiamo bene che i clandestini hanno un’ inclinazione a delinquere spropositata. Ecco, in casi del genere le frustate sono come il cacio sui maccheroni: carceri decongestionate e senso di giustizia appagato, compreso quello leghista.

Meglio frustati che in carcere. Ma nel caso dei clandestini c’è di più: meglio frustati che in carcere,  annegati o rinchiusi in un campo libico.

***

Qui non scendo in particolari burocratici ma ciascuno vede fin da subito che occorre un filtro all’accesso: alcuni criminali non possono essere rilasciati poiché rappresenterebbero un pericolo, penso ai malati mentali.

Ecco allora un altro effetto collaterale positivo: basta con tutte quelle ipocrite e fastidiose richieste d’ “incapacità”  per l’imputato, la tendenza s’invertirebbe nel segno di una responsabilizzazione dei singoli.

C’è forse chi pensa che una frustata sia troppo poco? Bene, discutiamone. Ma discutiamo però del numero, non del metodo.

A chi resta orripilato s’insista invece nel dire che trattasi di trattamento opzionale: la libera scelta si pone a fondamento del sistema riformato.

Lo si faccia presente soprattutto a quei “sensibiloni” che in nome della libera scelta accettano di tutto, anche l’eutanasia.

Immediatezza, proporzionalità, trasparenza, convenienza economica… le frustate sembrano avere tutte le carte in regola per proporsi come alternativa alla prigione, cosa impedisce un loro ritorno?

Tre cose.

1. Il fatto che le carceri siano un cospicuo business per molti insider che non mollano facilmente il posto alla mangiatoia.

2. Poi:  l’uomo secolarizzato e prosciugato da ogni  spiritualità, fa dell’ incolumità fisica il suo ultimo dio  (e quindi del dolore fisico il suo ultimo demonio). Sentire anche solo evocato il suo personale Satana lo disturba e lo atterrisce. Tremebondo smette di ragionare nel merito e cerca con tutte le sue forze di esorcizzare ogni azione riformatrice  ripristinando il tabù. Una diffusa cultura effeminata si oppone a prescindere alla frustata.

3. Ultima ragione: la mentalità progressista non puo’ ammettere che un miglioramento possa venire dal ripristino di “barbarie” passate opportunamente rivedute e corrette. Andare avanti per migliorare l’esistente è sentito come un dogma senza alternative, e questo a prescindere dal vicolo cieco in cui ci si è infilati.

Purtroppo, contro interessi consolidati, tabù e dogmi la lotta è impari.

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)

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crazy idea

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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IL RIFORMISMO NON INCIDE

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OBBIETTIVO 85%

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

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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

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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.

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

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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

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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

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the concept is disturbingly lacking in justice.
Note:ccccccccc

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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

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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

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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

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

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

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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

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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!

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

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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

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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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

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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

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

In difesa delle frustate

Nel suo “In defense of flogging” Peter Moskos affronta il tema seriamente, le provocazioni non gli interessano.

Ci sono un mucchio di persone in carcere e la crudeltà del sistema va ridotta: le frustate sono una soluzione.

L’ introspezione è sempre il miglior punto di partenza per ogni analisi…

… Given the choice between five years in prison and ten brutal lashes, which would you choose?…

Non so se avete presente cosa sia una prigione…

… 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…

E poi soppesate bene il fatto che la scelta è al centro dell’esperimento mentale…

… 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?…

Sullo sfondo di questa scelta campeggia la brutta notizia – da tenere nel debito conto - che se la prigione non funziona, non funzionano nemmeno le alternative alla prigione… 

… 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…

Frustare è un metodo barbarico ma forse alcune barbarie hanno una cattiva reputazione che non meritano.

Qui, ad ogni modo, si parla di sostituzione non di integrazione…

… 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.”…

Ma di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di frustate?…

… Ten lashes, a little rubbing alcohol, a few bandages, and you’d be free to go home and sleep in your own bed… Consider the case of Aaron Cohen, a New Zealander arrested with his drug-addicted mother for possessing heroin in Malaysia… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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.”…

Il compenso delle frustate:

… 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…

Per valutare questa soluzione si tenga presente che oggi il movimento anti-carcere è in stato fallimentare…

… 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…

Ma il carcere è utile? Non sembra proprio…

… 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… 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.”…  From 1970 to 1991 crime rose while we locked up a million more people…

Ma perché il carcere non riduce il crimine?

… 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… The war on drugs may have started as a response to a drug problem, but it’s created an even larger and entirely preventable prohibition problem… Prison reformers—and I wish them well—tinker at the edges of a massive failed system…

Il problema nella sua essenza:

… 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. Without alternative punishments, this will not happen anytime soon. Even the most optimistically progressive opponent of prison has no plan to release two million prisoners…

Depenalizzare? Forse, ad ogni modo questa soluzione richiede tempo, bisogna agire subito.

Un altro vantaggio delle frustate…

… 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…

C’è gente che non ripeterà mai il crimine che ha commesso: una volta creata la deterrenza con le frustate, tenerla in gabbia è inutile…

… 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…

Le frustate assolvono anche alla funzione retributiva della pena, un compito essenziale…

…  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… 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… the concept is disturbingly lacking in justice…

Non è un caso che molti sostengono la pena di morte ammettendo anche se convinti che non abbia un effetto deterrente.

Insomma, le frustate: 1) sono meno costose per la vittima e per la comunità, 2) producono un identico se non maggiore effetto deterrente, 3) producono un identico se non maggiore effetto retributivo, 4) producono un minore effetto diseducativo, 5) riducono la popolazione carceraria riservando spazi agli individui più pericolosi, 6) rendono inutili le difficili riforme e le improbabili depenalizzazioni, 7) sono meno crudeli in quanto somministrate solo dietro scelta volontaria.