Should We Bring Back Flogging?

In the article “Bring Back Flogging”, Jeff Jacoby talks about why he feels that flogging should be brought back into the court system. He gives enough facts to peek the interest of a person to look into bringing back this form of punishment for crimes that are not as severe as murder. His argument is that our justice system chooses to incarcerate one-time offenders instead of other forms of punishment and it is costing the states government a lot of money and putting those individuals at risk. Jacobys’ argument reads articulately, concise and somewhat unbiased but it does not give enough supporting details to his statements and statistical claims.

Jeff Jacoby states that flogging would be a better corporal punishment for young punks and minor wrongdoers because exposing them to prison is far more dangerous to their life. In his article he articulately expresses where he stands and gives supporting facts as to why he supports the idea and how it can be effective. He makes it clear that he strongly feels imprisonment should not be our go-to-punishment anymore because it is costly and not effective in stopping young punks committing crimes after they are out. The only effect it has is turning them into real criminals.

One weakness that Jacoby states in his article is “We cage criminals at a rate unsurpassed in the free world, yet few of us believe that the criminal justice system is a success”. His statement on how we “feel” as a society is not supported with any valid details to show how many of us actually feel this way. On the contrary, he touches base on how much money it costs to keep an inmate in jail and emphasizes that flogging is far cheaper and does not harden the individual of a minor crime into a real criminal. Although he gives a strong statement regarding the cost, he again does not give any statistical claim to support that it would deter the first time convicted criminal to commit another crime. Another weakness in Jacobys argument is his assumption that “ Many states have gone on prison-building spres, yet the penal system is choked to bursting”. He gives a good point, but we don’t know if it is true because his claim is not supported with any statistics.

If it were, it would prove to be a good and useful example in his argument to persuade a reader.

Jacobys argument is articulate and his points are good points. However, if he were to have more supporting statistical claims to his facts as well as more information about the other side of the arguments, it would be an unbiased argument. It would allow the reader to pick and choose which side he supports with supporting facts. Lastly, it would better show that our justice system uses incarceration far too much in the free world and could be used to help bring back flogging.