Beating Back Inhumanity

The disciplined nation of Singapore seems to be the newest whipping-boy of our righteous press. As we've all heard ad nauseam, an 18-year old American named Michael Fay has been condemned by Singapore's highest court to four months in prison a $2,600 fine and six lashes with a moistened rattan cane--all for the rather petty crime of vandalizing some automobiles.

The caning has been roundly decried as brutal and inhumane. Amnesty international, which has long condemned corporal punishment. describes whipping as a form of torture. The Washington Post, the New York Times and many on other publications reporting on the case have taken pains to describe the whipping process in all too excruciating detail; the prisoner is tied to a post, bare except for pads protecting his groin and kidneys, and whipped by a martial arts expert, The first blow breaks the skin and may send the prisoner into the shock. The rest are sure to leave permanent scars and magnify the damage proportionally.

There is little hope at this point for spearing Fay, who has lost all appeals, and can only tremble at his fate. Despite the personal intervention of President the Bill Clinton, Singapore appears unmoved and perhaps rightly so; the status of being American or being ignorant of the nation's laws should furnish Fay no excuse.

Recognizing this, Amnesty International and the national press have moved beyond the specifics of Fay's case to a broader criticism of the inhumanity of corporal punishment. A comparison of our two justice systems, however suggests that it may be ours that is less humane.

According to Interpol crime statistics, 44 homicides were known to Singapore police in 1990, down from 70 the previous year. This amounted to a per capita murder rate of 1.5 per 100,000. During the same period in the United States 23,440 homicides were recorded, up from 21,500 the previous year for a per capita murder rate of 9.4 per 100,000. In our nation's capital that figure was 78 murders per 100,000. Our justice system in other words, allows for the greater extinguishment of humanity.

But let's consider the more pertinent number: serious assaults. It is the court-ordered assault of a convicted criminal, after all, that is decried. In Singapore, 152 cases of serious assault were reported in 1989, and 142 in 1990. This works out to 5.7 and 4.2 case per 100,000 residents, respectively. In the U.S., 951,710 people were seriously assaulted in 1989, and the number toped a million the following year. A million serious assaults equals 424.1 per 100,000--more than four-tenths on one percent of our nation's population.

Moreover, serious assaults, as measured by the statistics, go beyond the restricted application of rattan cane, and include beatings shootings and stabbings.

In these cases, it is innocent who are harmed at random, picked by thugs who are likely to mete out more than a few controlled lashes.

At the minimum, these figures suggest that a disproportionate number of inhumane beatings are dealt out in the United States, not Singapore. More ominously, it appears that while in Singapore they beat up the criminals (and there are far fewer than here), in the U.S. the criminals beat up the rest of us. Ultimately, it seems that our justice system yields the far greater inhumanity, a consideration apparently overlooked by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which focus instead on the punishment the guilty criminal receives.

Typically, these groups don't provide any better alternatives. Indeed, prison--the mode of punishment they accept--may be the more brutal alternative.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, U.S. jails designed to hold 367,769 prisoners actually held 395,553 in 1991. Though no official statistics indicate the number of violent assaults, murders and rapes committed in America's prisons all accounts suggest that the numbers are high.

The report luridly describes the "humanity" of prison: strip searches, isolated confinement, beating by inmates and guards, 23-hour lock-downs, inaccessible medical care, filth and all the other imaginable physical and psychological horrors of a steel cage full of angry felons and fearful guards.

Prison is hardly humane.

There is also little question about what sort of person these conditions create. After even just one year of constant fear, hate and isolation in the company of other criminals, we can hardly expect for an improved citizen to emerge from jail. Instead, for $20,000 a year--the standard cost of confining a single prisoner--the American system effectively forges a tougher criminal, all in the names of humanity.

The greater effectiveness of a justice system employing corporal punishment mandates that it be considered in our own country. Though American courts have barred corporal punishment in U.S. prisons, they have done so based only on its poor implementation.

In 1968, the courts supported three Arkansas State Penitentiary prisoners who claimed that the use of leather strap was "cruel and unusual." The decision in the case of Jackson vs. Bishop states that "the strap's use, irrespective of any precautionary conditions which may be imposed, offends contemporary concepts of decency and human dignity, and precepts of civilization which we profess to possess. "Nevertheless, six of the nine points listed to explain this finding concerned the difficulties of regulating corporal punishment.

We find the judges wondering, for the example, "If whipping were to be authorized, how does one...ascertain the point which would distinguish the permissible from that which is cruel and unusual?"

The judges went on to suggest that whipping generates hate and lacks public support.

Yet confinement to prison generates hate as much as any whipping. And public opinion, at least in the Fay case, has clearly supported corporal punishment. A regulated use of corporal punishment, such as that in Singapore, would address the constitutional concerns of the court.

My point is not necessarily that Michael Fay should be caned. In this case, an eye for an eye, or an egg for an egg, might be most appropriate; certainly nothing has been perpetrated that a little community service couldn't repair.

Allegations have arisen that Fay has been made a scapegoat, and that corporal punishment for his case is excessive even by Singaporean standards.

These are serious indictments of any justice system that must be investigated before any punishment is administered.

Still, the accusations of inhumanity leveled at Singapore by Amnesty International and in the American media are hypocritical and naive.

The fact is that far greater inhumanity flourishes under our own justice system, and our prisons are no more humane than the corporal punishment employed in Singapore.

Ultimately, the conditions of our jails and our streets demand that we consider alternative techniques.

The immediate dismissal of an inexpensive and apparently highly effective form of criminal justice serves neither citizen nor criminal, but only a quixotic conscience.