Neil Steinberg wrote a good review of In Defense of Flogging in my old home-town Chicago Sun-Times. I’m particularly impressed that caught what I thought was obvious: Moskos has brilliantly used the old PR trick of marrying a complex, off-putting topic to a fascinating one. If you want to trick people into reading about penal reform, brandish a whip. And…
Tag: good press
Brave Thinkers of the Year
The Atlantic’s annual list of Brave Thinkers just came out. I’m in it (and with some pretty impressive company)! Mind you, this doesn’t actually mean I’m a goodthinker… just a brave one.
Maybe it’s not such a crazy idea…
Here’s me defending flogging for my favorite TV news show, the NewsHour. It’s very interesting that the option of flogging over prison currently registers over 70% support in their online poll. This mirrors the earlier newser survey in which 63% percent thought is was “brilliant” and another 13% found it “intriguing” (20% clicked in one of the negative categories).
A Q & A
In the Crime Report: The Crime Report:A lot of people have compared your book to Jonathan Swift’s essay, “A Modest Proposal.” But Swift’s work was pure satire, where yours is an honest look at a possible alternative punishment. Does the comparison frustrate you, or is it apt? Peter Moskos:Neither. I like the comparison. True, I don’t think Swift was really…
The Right Choice
I like this line from Time Magazine: Reading In Defense of Floggingis a lot like reading Woody Allen’s classic “My Speech to the Graduates,” in which he declares, “More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom…
God Bless The Economist
For their review: Imagine that you–or, if you prefer, a younger, more reckless version of you–committed a crime. … And say you were offered a choice: you could either spend those years behind bars, or you could get ten lashes. … You may think flogging is barbaric, but is there any question which you would choose if you could? According…
Five Year, or Ten Lashes?
Josh Rothman writes in the Boston Globe: His book is, as promised, a well-reasoned defense of flogging. It’s also an attack upon the penal system. … It’s hard to say how serious Moskos is being (though my money is on “pretty serious”). Even if you aren’t convinced that flogging is the future, though, Moskos’ deeper argument is still compelling.
Oh, Canada
Macleans, the Canadian news magazine, has a great article and Q&A with me. There’s some very good new material here, even if you think you’re heard everything I have to say about In Defense of Flogging. What is it about the Canadians? Why are their articles smarter and more insightful than ours? And they are awfully nice people. I mean,…
Tuesday One-Two Punch (or lash)
The Blaze(that’s Glenn Beck) and Metro(that’s subway). Metro is new material. Oh, and there’s a third punch. Let’s call it an uppercut. The Takeaway (National Public Radio) 7:45 AM (which is really the worst possible hour of the day for me to do anything. If it were any early, I’d just stay up all night and be much happier.