Professor Peter Moskos, of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has just published In Defense of Flogging, which is for sale at Amazon. Amazon: In Defense of Flogging



Product Description Prisons impose tremendous costs, yet they're easily ignored. Criminals-- even low-level nonviolent offenders-- enter our dysfunctional criminal justice system and disappear into a morass that's safely hidden from public view.

Our "tough on crime" political rhetoric offers us no way out, and prison reformers are too quickly dismissed as soft on criminals. Meanwhile, the taxpayer picks up the extraordinary and unnecessary bill. In Defense of Flogging presents a solution both radical and simple: give criminals a choice between incarceration and the lash.

Flogging is punishment: quick, cheap, and honest.

The book looks to be more than a little tongue in cheek, but I wonder if any copies are being passed around in the halls of the Texas Legislature.