Flogging Could Answer U.S. Prison Problems (Seriously): Books
"May 25 (Bloomberg) -- "In Defense of Flogging" isn't a joke, a satire or a thought experiment. Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore cop who's now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, seriously wants to reintroduce corporal punishment in the United States.
Don't laugh: He makes a convincing case. From the straightforward question he begins with -- "Given the choice between five years in prison and 10 brutal lashes, which would you choose?" -- he had my attention.
Moskos isn't a sadist or a fetishist. In fact, he finds flogging distasteful. (He describes the physical effects in graphic detail: "skin is literally ripped from the body," etc.)
But he's far more outraged by the American penal system, which incarcerates the largest total number (2.3 million) and the largest per capita proportion (750 per 100,000) of prisoners of any country in the world. When the U.S. has criticized China on human-rights issues, Beijing has had the satisfaction of pointing to these figures in response."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/24/bloomberg1376-LLNW4Z1A74E901-2PR8D2COUBJILAS1EARFBQBITJ.DTL#ixzz1NNbCQmjZ
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