God Bless The Economist

For their review:

Imagine that you–or, if you prefer, a younger, more reckless version of you–committed a crime.
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And say you were offered a choice: you could either spend those years behind bars, or you could get ten lashes.
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You may think flogging is barbaric, but is there any question which you would choose if you could? According to Peter Moskos, a sociologist whose previous book, “Cop in the Hood”, detailed his year spent as a Baltimore beat cop: “If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it.”

The modern American prison system evolved as an alternative to flogging: penitentiaries were designed to “cure” prisoners of their criminality—to render them penitent—rehabilitating them into productive members of society. On this score, as on most others, it has failed.
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“We build prisons for people we’re afraid of and fill them with people we’re mad at.”
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Brutal and archaic it may be, but Mr Moskos convincingly argues that America’s prison system is at least as inhumane.
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Perhaps the most damning evidence of the broken American prison system is that it makes a proposal to reinstate flogging appear almost reasonable. Almost.

Now will you buy my book?