The idea of flogging felons is about as palatable as subjecting citizens to the pillory or to tarring-and-feathering. Few outmoded penal practices conjure up the dark ages of jurisprudence as does a whip lashing through air and tenderizing a bare buttocks into a bloody pulp.
Until we consider the alternative: Rotting behind bars year after year, exposed to gang rapes and violence, steeped in the sociopathology of outlaws, and branded for life with a criminal record.
Peter Moskos, a New York criminal justice professor and former Baltimore cop, argues that corporal punishment is a far more humane - and economical - alternative for nonviolent criminals, particularly drug offenders. His nausea-inducing conclusion derives from America's runaway incarceration rate, which tops those of Cuba, Iran, Russia, Rwanda and China. What's more, he contends, the huge financial savings from not having to imprison could be used to compensate victims.
"Flogging is brutal - hell, flogging is supposed to be brutal - but brief, intense pain is better than long, drawn-out confinement," Moskos writes. "Your ten strokes would be over in about five minutes. ... You'll likely be in shock and perhaps even unconscious as the doctor treats the deep, bloody furrows left in your behind. Then, once they've patched you up, you'd be allowed to leave the courthouse a free man."
Moskos' "flog-and-release" approach runs counter to everything preached by criminologists and prison reformers in the past century. Hardly a literal remedy, Moskos' slender monograph falls in the tradition of the modest proposal, a shocking solution selected to prick the public conscience by exposing some great social injustice.
As for logistics, Moskos opts for outsourcing professional floggers from Malaysia and Singapore. All the more provocative than his social policy prescription: End the war on drugs, decriminalize narcotics and offer free drug rehab.
"My intention is to open your eyes to our massive and horrible system of incarceration," Moskos writes. "I am willing to defend flogging to start an honest discussion on punishment and alternatives to prison."
