On March 1, 2013, I submitted Prison Crisis Cure: The Constitutionality & Effectiveness of Judicial Corporal Punishment Compared to Massive Incarceration to The Criminal Law Bulletin for publication, and they have agreed to publish it.  My article advocates cutting the American prison population in half.  An abstract appears below. 
 
The Criminal Law Bulletin is a highly ranked peer-reviewed law journal specializing in criminal legal topics.
 
 
Abstract of
Prison Crisis Cure: The Constitutionality & Effectiveness of Judicial Corporal Punishment Compared to Massive Incarceration 
by John Dewar Gleissner
 
Public judicial corporal punishment (JCP) in the form of whipping was accepted practice at the time the Eighth Amendment was adopted in 1791 and was clearly not cruel and unusual in the constitutional sense.  Congress and all the state legislatures abolished JCP, ending with Delaware’s abolition in 1972, but the courts never held JCP (as opposed to prison discipline) unconstitutional.  The social and economic disasters of massive incarceration, summarized in Brown v. Plata, prove incarceration largely fails of its original purpose of rehabilitation, although retaining social benefit through incapacitation.  Given the proven historical use and effectiveness of JCP, and the advantages of cost, speed, repeatability, flexibility and social support after punishment, the author suggests JCP be re-introduced as an additional legal sanction.  Behavioral research, historical data, comparative criminal justice statistics, and advocates of JCP, including all the presidents on Mt. Rushmore, persuasively suggest its re-introduction in the U.S. as a race-neutral and gender-neutral punishment. Originalists as well as those who rely upon evolving standards of decency will likely hold public JCP constitutional.  Compared to massive incarceration, JCP is a reasonable way legislatures can reduce, but not eliminate, the prison population, increase rehabilitation and provide the great benefit of example as deterrence.  Word Count: 22,594     Footnotes: 265

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