In Defense Of Flogging

the long version

Presents philosophical and practical arguments in favor of the administration of judicial corporal punishment as a way of addressing problems in the American criminal justice system. America's justice system is broken. We have more prisoners than any other country on earth. Yet imprisonment - our go-to form of punishment for almost everything - is both cruel and ineffective, doing little but breeding criminality a great expense to the taxpayer. With a lively argument that is both boldly pragmatic and devastatingly ethical, criminologist Peter Moskos forces us to rethink accepted notions of crime and punishment. In Defense of Flogging lays bare why we must change our penal system and consider real alternatives that are cheaper, transparent, and more humane. -- from back cover.