4 ms·

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)

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.

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.