Overcrowding in prisons and jails causes numerous problems. The overcrowding is emblematic of an extremely expensive network of prisons and jails run by our city, county, state and federal governments. Overcrowding caused us to build more and more prisons and jails … and then it was found that a large number of prisoners were occupying the new facilities, which eventually became overcrowded as well. As a percentage of our population, the United States incarcerates by far more prisoners than any other nation in the world. An underlying problem is that jail and prison do not rehabilitate, but are simply an expensive way to make bad people worse. As a society, we have long accepted the finding that “nothing works” to rehabilitate criminals once they are sent to prison or jail sewers. As a hidden punishment, prison also doesn’t seem to be a sufficient deterrent to crime. Law abiding people are afraid of jail and prison, but criminals don’t seem to think they will be caught, they focus on immediate passions and desires, they enjoy the thrill of crime, and they are not so afraid of prison.
When the Constitution of the United States was written, very few people were sent to prison. In previous centuries, there were more corporal and capital punishment and more criminals transported to the Thirteen Colonies, penal colonies, Siberia, Devil’s Island, Australia, and the like. Less developed nations no longer like to receive criminals from other parts of the world. Capital punishment in the 21st century costs a few million dollars per execution, so if we want to save money, that’s probably not the way to do it. That leaves the outdated and inexpensive method of judicial corporal punishment. The good thing about judicial corporal punishment is that it has been effective in all the places where it has been tried. For example, corporal punishment was used in every slave society in history, showing that it does indeed keep people at bay. In fact, slaves were considered safe in pre-war times, the opposite of the way African Americans are perceived today. Slavery is not legal now, but many refer to prison as “New Age slavery” and the similarities are numerous.
Those who were subjected to corporal punishment in the past vouched for its effectiveness when administered fairly. Tea Slave narratives compiled by the Federal Writers Project from 1936 to 1938 prove this. While corporal punishment from parents is more likely to be abusive than judicial corporal punishment, many successful people say that it played an important role in their upbringing. The beauty of corporal punishment is that it doesn’t have to be used very often or at all if it’s administered in public.
One or two public floggings are usually sufficient. General George Washington used the whip to hold off his mainly white troops from 1776 until the victory at Yorktown. He is the man who presided over the Constitutional Convention, so judges who focused on the original intention of the Founders are unlikely to find it “cruel and unusual.” Thomas Jefferson included judicial corporal punishment in the legislation. What is cruel is solitary confinement, rape and violence in prisons, destruction of marriages, families and communities, gangs in prisons, and other social and psychological costs of incarceration. What is stupid and backward is the amount of money law abiding persons have to pay each year to support prisoners on what amounts to full-time welfare: about $ 25,000 per inmate per 2,300,000 inmates. When the number of workers is reduced relative to the number of retirees, it is insane to imprison a couple million healthy people and keep them inactive most of the time.
Most of those who view judicial corporal punishment “backwards” have not spent much time reflecting on the horrors of prison, the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States, the weakness of the American economy, or the enormous public debt we accumulated during the last decades. previous decades. In reality, judicial corporal punishment rehabilitates more offenders than prison.
In the HOLY BIBLE it says: If the culprit deserves to be beaten, the judge will make him lie down and will whip him in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves, but he must not give him more than forty lashes. . If they spank him more than that, your brother will degrade himself before your eyes. DEUTERONOMY 25: 2-3. The Bible requires that corporal punishment be administered in front of the judge, which is a wise requirement to discourage abusive use outside of judicial scrutiny. Jesus made a whip and used it to drive away people and livestock: So he made a whip with ropes, and drove everyone out of the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the money changers’ coins and overturned their tables. JOHN 2:15. Jesus said that he came to proclaim the freedom of the prisoners.
Human societies sometimes fool themselves. One of those delusions held that criminals would improve as people if we put them in cages.
