7 ms·

That's the proposal. Sentence them to the lash instead of to prison. ;) Decriminalizing drugs is a good first step. Back to the topic at hand. A public lashin

That's the proposal. Sentence them to the lash instead of to prison. ;) Decriminalizing drugs is a good first step. Back to the topic at hand. A public lashing is probably a better solution for non-violent crime than prison. Something to think about.

rbehrends 13y ago
Or community service or a fine as they do it in other countries? There are primarily two things that contribute to the high incarceration rate in the US: (1) Incarceration for petty offenses. Heck, pre-trial detention contributes a lot. (2) Disproportionately long prison sentences. Corporal punishment isn't a great alternative for either. If anything, it reinforces the brutality of the existing incarceration regime.
- digitalengineer 13y ago
  Just read up on some data about flogging up until 1954, Great Britain. Memories of criminals about flogging. Interesting read, OP seems to have a point, some men don't fear prison, it's their natural habitat. They do fear "The Cat" and changed their behavior accordingly. (scroll to "Only the 'CAT' holds back the brutes" http://www.corpun.com/ukpr5407.htm http://www.corpun.com/ukpr5407.htm
  - rbehrends 13y ago
    Having an insufficient deterrent is not the problem when other countries have 10%-20% the incarceration rate of the US without flogging while having generally lower crime rates overall and violent crime rates in particular.
    - judk 13y ago
      We can't time travel and not-import a huge swath of poor abused hated people. Do you propose we deport them to become more like other countries?
      - rbehrends 13y ago
        The US does not have a particularly high proportion of first-generation immigrants compared to some European countries. There are also other countries that have more poverty (in the absolute sense at least), yet less crime and less incarceration. Poverty is also something that society can do something about; if you say that the problem is that America has created a large underclass, then that's the problem you want to solve. Flogging won't reduce the size of that underclass; it can only subdue it.
        judk 13y ago
        Why did you stick "first generation immigrant" in there. Those aren't the people who were imported and abused.
        rbehrends 13y ago
        Because your language was sufficiently imprecise so that it wasn't clear what you're talking about, and because, while being a first-generation immigrant may correlate with a higher crime rate, the same does not generally hold for future generations (when integration has happened). Note that life in the slums of Victorian London was not any better than for post-Civil War African Americans, for example. If you control for first-immigration immigrants along with socio-economic disadvantages, most of the difference in crime rates between minorities and the rest of population goes away. That minorities were/are imported and abused plays a role only insofar as existing racism and social stratification perpetuates the disadvantages they suffer. However, flogging will not eliminate racism or social stratification; if anything, it will do the opposite.
  - colanderman 13y ago
    Few men get the "cat" twice. I know only one man who did. [...] Obviously, the only way to get a message of disapproval into such an obtuse skull is via the nine whipcord communications lines of the Home Office cat-o'-nine-tails through the flesh of his shoulders and nerves up to his selfish, destructive, jungle brain. Mm, the old anecdote + proof by obviousness. A classic form of scientific study.
    - digitalengineer 13y ago
      Not entirely, this Mr Fabian was one of the world's most famous policemen in the middle of the 20th century. Robert "Fabian of the Yard" Fabian was the former chief detective of the (London) Metropolitan Police murder squad, based at Scotland Yard.
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  >If anything, it reinforces the brutality of the existing incarceration regime. I think that was the articles point. If america was constantly subjecting black people to brutal physical punishment in every public square for no good reason, rather than quietly locking them away, they might have to confront a few truths.
- vidarh 13y ago
  > Corporal punishment isn't a great alternative for either. If anything, it reinforces the brutality of the existing incarceration regime. Read the last two paragraphs. It makes exactly that point: The current system is dishonest in that it hides the brutality of the system.
  - rbehrends 13y ago
    That's debating society stuff, though, not an actual reform proposal, and highly conjectural. Plenty of people make prison rape jokes already; I don't see them having a problem with flogging, either. Especially since it would likely happen behind closed doors. To not hide it, people would have to see it, and the current prison system is brutal enough so that showing it would be enough of a shock; the problem is that it's not being seen enough, and I don't see how that would be any different with flogging.
sigzero 13y ago
"Decriminalizing drugs is a good first step." No, it really isn't. Changing the punishment would be.
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  Do you have any data to support this assertion? Because I have data to support decriminalization: http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminalization-portugal-lessons-creating-fair-successful-drug-policies http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminal... I can also give you the view from the ground level: I grew up in Portugal and in the 80s people shooting heroin in the streets was common. Now it's almost unheard of. Addicts are helped, not punished, and it just works.
  - digitalengineer 13y ago
    In The Netherlands some cities provide addicts with methadone and they give away free needles if they returns their old (and used) needles. There is a quit and private place to 'shoot' as well.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Really, many of the problems of drugs come from illegality. Decriminalizing drugs means that the very real health problems that drugs cause the users can be addressed as health concerns without the weird job-risking hoops that people jump through.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    Even more important: Most of those very real health problems that drugs cause the user are actually not caused by the drug itself but rather by impurities added by the dealer, dirty needles, less-than-ideal sanitary conditions etc. Those can all be tackled if drugs are not illegal.

rbehrends 13y ago

Or community service or a fine as they do it in other countries? There are primarily two things that contribute to the high incarceration rate in the US: (1) Incarceration for petty offenses. Heck, pre-trial detention contributes a lot. (2) Disproportionately long prison sentences. Corporal punishment isn't a great alternative for either. If anything, it reinforces the brutality of the existing incarceration regime.

digitalengineer 13y ago
Just read up on some data about flogging up until 1954, Great Britain. Memories of criminals about flogging. Interesting read, OP seems to have a point, some men don't fear prison, it's their natural habitat. They do fear "The Cat" and changed their behavior accordingly. (scroll to "Only the 'CAT' holds back the brutes" http://www.corpun.com/ukpr5407.htm http://www.corpun.com/ukpr5407.htm
- rbehrends 13y ago
  Having an insufficient deterrent is not the problem when other countries have 10%-20% the incarceration rate of the US without flogging while having generally lower crime rates overall and violent crime rates in particular.
  - judk 13y ago
    We can't time travel and not-import a huge swath of poor abused hated people. Do you propose we deport them to become more like other countries?
    - rbehrends 13y ago
      The US does not have a particularly high proportion of first-generation immigrants compared to some European countries. There are also other countries that have more poverty (in the absolute sense at least), yet less crime and less incarceration. Poverty is also something that society can do something about; if you say that the problem is that America has created a large underclass, then that's the problem you want to solve. Flogging won't reduce the size of that underclass; it can only subdue it.
      - judk 13y ago
        Why did you stick "first generation immigrant" in there. Those aren't the people who were imported and abused.
        rbehrends 13y ago
        Because your language was sufficiently imprecise so that it wasn't clear what you're talking about, and because, while being a first-generation immigrant may correlate with a higher crime rate, the same does not generally hold for future generations (when integration has happened). Note that life in the slums of Victorian London was not any better than for post-Civil War African Americans, for example. If you control for first-immigration immigrants along with socio-economic disadvantages, most of the difference in crime rates between minorities and the rest of population goes away. That minorities were/are imported and abused plays a role only insofar as existing racism and social stratification perpetuates the disadvantages they suffer. However, flogging will not eliminate racism or social stratification; if anything, it will do the opposite.
- colanderman 13y ago
  Few men get the "cat" twice. I know only one man who did. [...] Obviously, the only way to get a message of disapproval into such an obtuse skull is via the nine whipcord communications lines of the Home Office cat-o'-nine-tails through the flesh of his shoulders and nerves up to his selfish, destructive, jungle brain. Mm, the old anecdote + proof by obviousness. A classic form of scientific study.
  - digitalengineer 13y ago
    Not entirely, this Mr Fabian was one of the world's most famous policemen in the middle of the 20th century. Robert "Fabian of the Yard" Fabian was the former chief detective of the (London) Metropolitan Police murder squad, based at Scotland Yard.
JonnieCache 13y ago
>If anything, it reinforces the brutality of the existing incarceration regime. I think that was the articles point. If america was constantly subjecting black people to brutal physical punishment in every public square for no good reason, rather than quietly locking them away, they might have to confront a few truths.
vidarh 13y ago
> Corporal punishment isn't a great alternative for either. If anything, it reinforces the brutality of the existing incarceration regime. Read the last two paragraphs. It makes exactly that point: The current system is dishonest in that it hides the brutality of the system.
- rbehrends 13y ago
  That's debating society stuff, though, not an actual reform proposal, and highly conjectural. Plenty of people make prison rape jokes already; I don't see them having a problem with flogging, either. Especially since it would likely happen behind closed doors. To not hide it, people would have to see it, and the current prison system is brutal enough so that showing it would be enough of a shock; the problem is that it's not being seen enough, and I don't see how that would be any different with flogging.

sigzero 13y ago

"Decriminalizing drugs is a good first step." No, it really isn't. Changing the punishment would be.

TelmoMenezes 13y ago
Do you have any data to support this assertion? Because I have data to support decriminalization: http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminalization-portugal-lessons-creating-fair-successful-drug-policies http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminal... I can also give you the view from the ground level: I grew up in Portugal and in the 80s people shooting heroin in the streets was common. Now it's almost unheard of. Addicts are helped, not punished, and it just works.
- digitalengineer 13y ago
  In The Netherlands some cities provide addicts with methadone and they give away free needles if they returns their old (and used) needles. There is a quit and private place to 'shoot' as well.
DanBC 13y ago
Really, many of the problems of drugs come from illegality. Decriminalizing drugs means that the very real health problems that drugs cause the users can be addressed as health concerns without the weird job-risking hoops that people jump through.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  Even more important: Most of those very real health problems that drugs cause the user are actually not caused by the drug itself but rather by impurities added by the dealer, dirty needles, less-than-ideal sanitary conditions etc. Those can all be tackled if drugs are not illegal.