This time it attracted a few useful comments by Alastair J. Roberts who links to an essay by Peter Moskos published in The Chronicle of Higher Education April 24, 2011 under the title "In Defense of Flogging". The essay tells of the origin of his book with the same title published later that year.
The opening gambit of the book is surprisingly simple: If you were sentenced to five years in prison but had the option of receiving lashes instead, what would you choose? You would probably pick flogging. Wouldn't we all?The book is in fact not so much extolling the virtues of flogging, he tells us, but questioning our alternative. Writing as an US-American he seeks to expose the brutality and inhumanity of the US-American prison system.
So is flogging still too cruel to contemplate? Perhaps it's not as crazy as you thought. And even if you're adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhumane form of punishment, how can offering criminals the choice of the lash in lieu of incarceration be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. Of course most people would choose the rattan cane over the prison cell. And that's my point. Faced with the choice between hard time and the lash, the lash is better. What does that say about prison
