Jeff Jacoby, “Bring Back Flogging,” in Sylvan Barnet and Others, eds. Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument, 9th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017. 196-198.
Paola Zamarripa October 19, 2017
In “Bring Back Flogging,” Jeff Jacoby argues that the need of bringing back flogging is an excellent way of punishment for modern society. Jacoby also states how crime has gotten out of hand over the past few decades, which has lead for the government to establish more prisons to lock up more criminals. Jacoby gives three arguments in defense to his position: first, he expresses how flogging is cheaper; second, people who go into trial do not get sentenced anyway or takes a long time; third, inmates in prisons will
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Jacoby starts off informing the reader about different scenarios on how the Boston Puritan forefathers went about flogging. For example, he states that in 1632, Richard Hopkins was sentenced to be “whipt, branded with a hott iron on one of his cheeks” (196). However, in modern society this method is not humane, therefore, “ lock them up in cages” (197). Locking inmates in cages is a “sign of manhood, a status symbol” (197). According to Jacoby flogging is cheaper due to the excessive amount of money each inmate cost. “The price of keeping criminals in cages is appalling – a common estimate is 30,00 dollars per inmate per year” (197). There are nearly 1.6 million Americans behind bars today, which is approximately forty-eight billion dollars per year. Another of Jacoby’s argument is that those who commit a crime a lot of the times are of the hook because the procedures take a long time. Therefore, allowing these criminals to be freed with any punishment. Allowing flogging in this situation whether they committed the crime or not, it will remind them to go in the correct path. Finally, due to the excessive amount of inmates in jails, there are many setbacks like rape and murdered. In the case of flogging there is no danger, but the punishment that the criminal will have is because of the decisions he has taken. Not to mention, many offenders in prison are there for non-violent crimes.