Bring Back Flogging

A detailed Summary of Bring Back Flogging

This essay by Jeff Jacoby illustrates an authors use of ironic sarcasm otherwise known as satire to defend and illustrate his platform on his position. Jacoby uses in this essay verbal irony (persuasion in the form of ridicule). In the irony of this sort there is a contrast between what is said and what is meant.

Jacoby's claim in simple is he believes that flogging should be brought back to replace the more standard conventional method of the imprisonment of violent and non-violent offenders.

His grounds for the revival of flogging stems back to his initial mention of the Puritan punishment system. He cites how in 1632 Richard Hopkins was Flogged and branded for selling guns and weapons to the Indians, how Joseph Gatchell in 1684 convicted of blasphemy, had his tongue pierced with a hot iron, and finally in 1694 Hannah Newell and her consort were lashed for adultery. He concludes that the corporal punishment system did not vanish with the puritans, Deleware did not get around to repealing it till 1972. Jacoby's sarcasm can be noted by the way he illustrates the punishment of various acts. He notes in a list that killers, drug dealers, and other acts ultimately end up in prison. Prison he says s

2. Sylvan Barnet, Hugo Bedau, A philosophers view : The Toulmin Model Current Issues and Enduring questions pg 251 Bedford St Martins 1999.

1. Jacoby, Jeff Bring Back Flogging, Boston Globe Feb. 20 1997.

The question arises toward Jacoby's first reason for flogging. Jacoby's case for the overpopulation and development of new institutions doesn't find favor in my eyes. Yes, the tax paying American is paying for the prison system, but he also pays to employ many of the correction officers along with the contractors who build and restore many of the institutions. Thus the penal system is providing jobs for many Americans. Secondly incarceration is a more reliable method of securing violent criminals for a time as opposed to flogging them in public only to release them back on the street with an intensified vengeance. Studies have shown that many criminals better themselves in prison such as getting a high school, college diploma ,or even trade degrees. To say that a stint in prison is a sign of manhood or a status symbol for many inmates is a matter of opinion. Jacoby's report about the high risk of rape in prison can be an exaggerated statistic which may include degenerative prisons, or may only include a homosexual population in prison. The general statement of the amount of inmates raped per year in prison isn't a conclusive number without breaking down all the variables of the statistic.

When Jacoby in paragraph three states that "today we are more enlightened than our puritan forefathers where they used flogging we lock wrongdoers up in cages", he is portraying a method of verbal irony (sarcasm). He continues his sarcastic voice when he lists a criminal act and states that each punishment seems to be incarceration. His satire of the modern day justice system is even more noticeable when he claims that prison is the all purpose, all in one punishment. His final statement of the essay that perhaps the puritans where more enlightened than we thought contradicts one o

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1350
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous