Jeff Jacoby Bring Back Flogging Summary

Whipping a painful and humiliating punishment that has been used in humanity's past, but what if we brought it back? Jeff Jacoby published a piece calling for the return of flogging as corporal punishment in the United States, the piece fairly straightforwardly titled “Bring back Flogging”. Is this a beneficial possibility, and if so why may we want to see it brought back from its current unintegration from our society's punishment?
Jacoby’s “Bring back Flogging” discusses use of corporal punishment in our nation's history and argues for its return in the place of some modern methods of punishment. Jacoby cites the cost of current punishment methods to taxpayers being too high, the public humiliation of flogging, the moral ethicacy of whipping over imprisonment, and to quote Jacoby the idea that “Crime is out of control” as reasons supporting his claim.
I do not agree with Jacoby’s claim as he does not provide any sound evidence or cite sources to reinforce the majority of his statements. Because of this it is of my opinion being a responsible informed and passionate citizen that corporal punishment is horrific and has no

place in our modern society. This is due to the punishment being unjust, cruel, and providing no benefit to a society that implements the punishment, this making corporal punishment entirely unnecessary as a form of disciplinary punishment.
Let us begin by covering why corporal punishment has no place in the United States.

This is by far the easiest to shut down of Jacoby claims, because the Eighth Amendment of the united States Constitution states “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”. Regardless of whether or not whipping would be defined as an unusual punishment it is most certainly and undoubtedly cruel, and for those who would receive it as a punishment It could lead to long-term injuries. There is also the possibility that an individual who has been convicted of a crime could have a health condition that may cause their whipping sentence to turn in a death sentence, and though that individual example may be slightly hyperbolic whipping would undoubtedly be a health risk to convicted

individuals.
Corporal punishment is also irrational because our current means of punishment is more beneficial to society. Whipping somebody because they committed a crime offers little to no opportunity for rehabilitation, Which means it does very little in dissuading repeat offenders. The reason we know this to be true is because according to an analysis done by the Delaware Criminal Justice Council Statistical Analysis Center of recidivism in the state an immense amount of people who were put in jail end up committing another crime and going back, and I am aware that this sounds pretty damning for my argument; however, this would ring equally true for corporal punishment as the system has no opportunity for rehabilitation. For instance if we caught someone selling an illegal substance and decide to whip them that's the end of the punishment. Comparatively if we were to incarcerate them it provides the opportunity for them to better themselves through programs aimed at making prisoners into better future citizens, and although successful rehabilitation programs in prisons are far and few and may be more expensive they can have a long-term beneficial impact on our society unlike corporal punishment.
The call for such a drastic change In the way we punish prisoners is unnecessary regardless, because Crime in the United States has been dropping. In fact according to Information published by the FBI, crime since 1993 Has been dropping even while the population of the united states has been increasing, and unsurprisingly due to this drop in crime the population of prisoners in the United States has been slowly decreasing along with that lowered crime rate. Jacoby does mention in his piece “Bring back flogging” that “ some 1.6 million Americans are behind bars today. that represents a 250% increase since 1980 and the number is climbing.” (Paragraph.3) and while he provides for the reader no source for his data, at the time the prison population was growing and would continue to until 2005 after which the prisoner population has for the most part been slowly decreasing.
Jakoby does discuss important issues about the system through which we convict people such as minimum sentencing, and a growing prison population ;however, the solution offered in his piece is an outlandish proposal could instill a detrimental falsehood in the mind of some readers regardless or if the intent of the pieces was truthful or satirical . Even though our current system of punishment isn't perfect and there are plenty of ways could be improved clearly moving to a more barbaric form of punishment is not what we should be focused on, rather we should focus on making this system we currently have One that is better capable to process prisoners in a just and responsible way.