Summary Of Jeff Jacoby Bring Back Flogging

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Tongues pierced with hot irons, branded cheeks, and slashes from whips. What better way is there to snap criminals back into place? Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, promotes the reintroduction of torture, reviving the past days of heavy corporal punishment, in his article Bring Back Flogging. Jacoby uses shocking statistics and compares the effectiveness of Puritan punishment to today’s methods, However, his argument lacks acknowledgement to vast differences between societies, and fails to provide a solid plan for incorporating corporal punishment back into the penal system.

The article begins by referencing accounts of the Puritan’s punishments of misdemeanors. A convict of blasphemy “was ordered to stand in pillory, have