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Tag: In Defense of Flogging

  • Flogging yes… but the horsewhip?

    From a comment to my article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

    I think that the editors of the Chronicle and the people at John Jay who hired this thug should be taken out and horsewhipped.

    Luckily, the woman responsible for hiring this thug stands by me.

    In more mistaken criticism, somebody from the absurd we-have-2.3-million-prisoners-because-we-have-more-freedom camp says:

    Moskos’s argument is ethically offensive… One is left with the suspicion that this just the latest in a long, long chain of progressive arguments…for not punishing criminals at all…. Moskos tips us off with this section, which is typical of the breed. [emphasis added]

    Now I can’t criticize a guy for not reading my book yet (because it’s not out), but it’s curious how he could jump to so many conclusions and be so wrong. I guess he’s mistaken about “my breed,” whatever that means.

  • Flogging Momentum

    My piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education seemed to make a splash. There’s also a piece out in the Washington Monthly (not yet available online… but why not subscribe?). I haven’t seen it yet. I mean, I’ve seen it. I wrote it…. But I haven’t seen it in print.

    Most people seem to be responding to the book correctly: with thoughtful discussion. That’s a great sign! Also a good sign is the I went up the Amazon sales rank today, which isn’t bad for a book that isn’t out yet. On the subject, my editor at Basic Books said she was holding a copy of the real deal in her hands. So it is starting to come off the presses.

    It almost seems as if if flogging has already gotten more press than Cop in the Hoodever got. That’s good, but also a bit bittersweet.

  • An Easter Flogging

    The first article to come from my new book is out in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

    A crazy idea came from a dinner in New Orleans. I had cold-called (or whatever the e-mail equivalent is) a writer and his wife because I was a fan of his work and thought we had much in common. They were gracious enough to arrange a meal and treat me, without much justification, as a professional equal more than a stalker. The conversation turned to corporal punishment in public schools. They were amazed not that such a peculiarity existed in a city ripe with oddities, but that such illegal punishments were administered at the urging of and with the full consent of the students’ parents.

    “Fascinating,” I drolly replied, but I wasn’t shocked. If I’d learned one thing as a police officer patrolling a poor neighborhood, it was the working- and lower-class populations’ great fondness for corporal punishment. No punishment is as easy or seemingly satisfying as a physical beating. I learned this not because I beat people, but because the good citizens I swore to serve and protect often urged me to do so. It wasn’t hard for me to resist (I liked my job, and besides, I wasn’t raised that way), but I agreed that many of the disrespectful hoodlums deserved a beating. Why? Because, as the old-school thinking goes, when people do wrong, they deserve to be punished.

    Read the rest here.

    Happy Easter and Χριστὸς Ἀνέστη. Crack a red egg and eat some lamb. (Rita Wilson, just FYI, was the producer of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and is Tom Hank’s wife.)

  • In Defense of Flogging, the Website

    Just what you’ve been waiting for, I’m sure! But seriously, the good people at Basic Books were kind enough to make me a website. Here it is, live and online.

    I’m sitting in Newark Airport, heading to Mexico City for a week’s vacation. Don’t expect much here till I’m back.

  • Liking a Defense of Flogging

    Liking a Defense of Flogging

    The first review of In Defense of Flogging is out today. It’s always a bit nerve racking when you click on that first review. But it’s favorable. Phew! Though I view descriptive/neutral-plus as favorable for a book like this. It’s hard to gush over a book called In Defense of Flogging, lest others start wondering if you got “something you want tell me?” (Hell, I’m just happy it wasn’t panned… but maybe I should set my sights a bit higher.)

    From Publishers Weekly:

    Moskos, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who specializes in police and criminal science, debates with the utmost seriousness the merits of flogging as an alternative to incarceration. Whether it’s called caning or lashing, he concludes flogging, which penetrates the flesh but is over quickly, is less cruel than depriving people of a chunk of their lives in “a barbaric, inhuman” institution where a record number of 2.3 million Americans endure insult and humiliation, with a high incidence of sexual aggression, rape, and a great risk of contracting a communicable disease. Moskos lists the long history of prison reforms in the U.S., but concludes that our penal system remains “an insidious marriage of entombment and torture.” Presenting the Singapore and Malaysian models of flogging, the author draws on interviews and recommendations to boost his “thought experiment.” Indeed, when Moskos mentions the possibility of electric shock as another option , readers will begin to wonder if the writer is poking outlandish fun and crafting a notion similar to Swift’s 1729 classic “A Modest Proposal,” using satire to call attention to the “shame” of our inhumane prison system.

    Just for the record, I intend no satire. But any comparison to Swift’s A Modest Proposal has got to be good.

    The book will be out June 1. And it’s up to #24 on the Vulture’s Anticipation Index.

  • Looking Good…

    Looking Good…

    I got the design for the book cover for In Defense of Flogging. That’s always kind of an exciting moment. I like it.

    And the front and back flaps:


    The book will be out June 1. You can pre-order on Amazon, if you’re so inclined.

  • A Sociologist’s Response To Anthropology

    I have a short article in the journal PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. “Policing: A Sociologist’s Response to an Anthropological Account.” You can read the PDF here.

    I love reading other people’s summary of my work. This is from the issue’s introduction:

    In his commentary on Karpiak’s article, sociologist and criminologist Peter Moskos praises Karpiak for presenting an (in his view) unusually lucid example of anthropological writing. Moskos takes particular aim at the pressure in some sociological writing to conform to natural science models for research method and writing, which he feels take the enterprise off course. Instead, he advocates an interdisciplinary and combined-method approach in which qualitative and quantitative approaches can be brought together, in an effort to check the admittedly partial character of the knowledge produced by each method.

    Is that what I’m saying?

    My favorite part (and what will undoubtedly bring me into the glamorous party circuit of the high-rolling world of international poetry) is my haiku version of “Casey at the Bat.” It goes like this:

    mighty casey swings
    oh two two on down by two
    no joy in Mudville

    All kidding aside (not that I was kidding), I do believe that almost everything can (and should) be summarized in 17 syllables. Talk about cutting to the chase; it’s a useful skill. Recently, for my next book, I took my hand at Foucault. I was going to omit Foucault from the book on principle. But then I realized I couldn’t figure out what that principle was (except for me not liking Foucault’s writing). I also didn’t want people to think I didn’t read Foucault. Oh, no. I read Foucault. I thought about him long and hard. I just don’t like Foucault. And every time I read, “As Foucault said,” I reach for my gun. So to help make my point about the Frenchman’s needless verbosity, I attempted to summarize Discipline & Punish in 17 syllables.

    I couldn’t do it.

    It turns out that Foulcault’s classic treatise needs twohaikus:

    society’s norms
    more like prisons every day
    resistance is futile

    from body to mind
    a new system of control
    the Panopticon

    Speaking of my next book, here’s my 17-syllable summary of In Defense of Flogging:

    punish with the lash
    it’s much better than prison
    why not give the choice?

    That’s all you really need to know, but read the book anyway.