Bring Back The Stocks
It’s time to end years of injustice in our legal system, listen to the 8th Amendment and our common sense, and bring back the stocks.
A recent case involving MySpace.com brings this cause new urgency. Alex Phillips of Wisconsin posted nude photos of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend on his MySpace page along with lewd, humiliating comments. When told by officials to take them down, his response was a hearty “fuck u lolz!”
The government response was to slam Phillips with charges of defamation and child porn. And while there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing this quasi-pubescent ROFL-copter suffer, it brings to the fore the question on everybody’s mind: “Why don’t we end the cruel and unusual punishment of imprisonment for crimes like this, and just bring back the stocks?”
What’s more cruel and unusual, after all; what punishment fits this crime? Phillips’ offense was publicly humiliating a helpless girl and being an idiot. Is the fitting punishment, then:
A. Render him helpless in a humiliating position in public and treat him like an idiot.
B. Charge his parents ridiculous amounts of money, prevent him from getting a decent job any time in the forseeable future and place him among gangs.
Which is the more unusual? To do to him a version of what he did to her, or to do something that affects others indirectly affected by the crime and prevents him from rejoining society fully?
For that matter, which is more cruel?
Sure, the stocks are physically uncomfortable, but so is being locked away for months and having to get a pen-knife tattoo from a member of the Aryan Nation so that you don’t get shivved fifty-nine times by the Mexican Mafia.
Sure, the stocks are humiliating, but showering with a bunch of guys who might gang rape you, and being cavity-searched, is pretty humiliating too.
Sure, the stocks lead to loss of public standing, but door-to-door introductions of yourself as a sex offender - as is required by law - doesn’t exactly lead to housewarming gifts.
Many crimes could fall under this jurisdiction. How many lives could be rescued from permanent stigma in the job market and the dangers of incarceration if hapless drug offenders were stuck in the stocks rather than sent to prison? For that matter, offenses like libel and drunk driving might even be more effectively punished by the public humiliation.
It seems clear to me: Incarceration and the infamy of a criminal record must be assessed as a kind of cruelty, one unusual to many offenses.
And in this age of reality TV and MySpace, where public humiliation is a hot commodity, the stocks just make sense.
Discussion