By Rich Fisher
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-975928.mp3
Tulsa, Oklahoma – The first definition of "flog" that Merriam-Webster Online offers is this: "to beat with, or as if with, a rod or whip." Could this be in the cards, as it were, for the American prison system? On today's installment of StudioTulsa, we're discussing a brief yet highly provocative new book, which has lately been referred to on many an op-ed page, called "In Defense of Flogging." Our guest is the author of this book, Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer who's now a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC. As one critic, writing for Bloomberg News, has noted of this volume: "[This book] isn't a joke, a satire, or a thought experiment.... [Moskos] makes a convincing case.... 'In Defense of Flogging' is one of the very few public-policy books I've encountered that goes past wringing its hands over a societal problem to offer a viable solution, by which I mean one with a prayer of being put into place because it has appeal across the political spectrum.... At just over 150 pages of clear, smart, and highly readable prose, Moskos's sharp little volume has a potential audience far beyond the experts who dutifully slog through most tomes like this.... I know one thing, though. Given the choice between ten lashes and five years, I'd take the whip." And a writer for The Daily Beast has observed, further: "If we're capable of taking Moskos's idea as a serious option to incarceration, it could have profound consequences for a nation that incarcerates its citizens at a rate that's seven times as high as the other nations of the world. Clearly we have to find a way to reduce prison populations, and this just might be a logical one.... 'In Defense of Flogging' forces the reader to confront issues surrounding incarceration that most Americans would prefer not to think about."