November 12, 2011 – Deuteronomy 25 – 26

I was thinking about the way that they punished people for crimes back then and how it is different now. We think that lashing or whipping them would be so cruel and we are much more humane. I think that may not be that obvious. After a person is whipped, they heal, should have learned not to do it again and then goes back into the community. Our system locks them away for long periods of time so that they lose touch and when brought back in they are behind and lost. Both can come back and commit crimes again, but I feel it is more likely that the person who is away and unconnected and not able to get back on their feet is more desperate and more likely to commit crime. The whipping happens quickly, in this reading, right there in front of the judge, and then it is over. I don’t know when courts moved away from physical punishment in favor of imprisonment, but do we see that this shift has moved into the realm of parenting. Now, you cannot spank your child, you must use “time outs”. Move away from the physical to the time of separation. I understand that smarter people than I have done all sorts of research and everyone says that this is the correct way, but I am still not convinced. Granted that I am not so unconvinced that I spank my children, but I just don’t feel that the debate should be over. It just appears that when you look at or criminal justice system and the idea of separation, or worse putting criminals together for lengths of time, what are we trying to do. In school, detention has taken the place of a ruler slap, same basic arguments. If separation is the only idea, I think it is flawed. If you go in a try to rehabilitate, I think the argument is much stronger. I will try to keep that in mind the next time Paul gets put in “time out” or a “break” or whatever the latest magazine my wife reads calls it. And detention in the same manner. If you are just keeping kids in a classroom for an hour, what is the benefit. Make it educational, maybe something practical or vocational. The whole idea of just getting bad people out of our hair seems almost as barbaric as 40 lashes.