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IMAGINE that you—or, if you prefer, a younger, more reckless version of you—committed a crime. A bar brawl, driving home drunk again, some tax fiddling, getting caught with a more-than-trivial but less-than-kingpin amount of illegal drugs: something, in any event, that got you sentenced to a few years in prison. And say you were offered a choice: you could either spend those years behind bars, or you could get ten lashes. Certainly painful, probably humiliating, but it would be done under close medical supervision by a licensed flogger, and it would be over in minutes. You would recover, except for the scarring, in a few weeks. And you could get on with your life. You may think flogging is barbaric, but is there any question which you would choose if you could? According to Peter Moskos, a sociologist whose previous book, “Cop in the Hood”, detailed his year spent as a Baltimore beat cop: “If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it.”
The modern American prison system evolved as an alternative to flogging: penitentiaries were designed to “cure” prisoners of their criminality—to render them penitent—rehabilitating them into productive members of society. On this score, as on most others, it has failed. Indeed, prisons seem to cause more crime than they prevent, hardly surprising when you throw a bunch of criminals together with nothing to do and lots of time. Today roughly 2.3m people live in America’s prisons, more than live in any American city other than New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. America’s incarceration rate of 750 per 100,000 is five times the world average roughly one in every 31 Americans—and one in every 11 African-Americans—is under some form of correctional control, whether prison, probation or parole.

A. 어휘
penal system 刑罰(형벌)제도. flog 매질하다. criminals 범죄자.
jail 감옥에 보내다. lash 채찍. Sing Sing 감옥 이름.
reckless 분별없는, 무모한. reckless version of you 당신의 분별없는 부분.
brawl 말다툼, 대소동. fiddling 사기, 속이기. trivial 하찮은, 사소한.
kingpin 중요한. illegal drugs 불법 마약.
say you were offered a choice 즉 하나의 선택을 제안 받는다면.
behind bars 쇠창살 뒤에서(감옥에서). humiliating 모욕적인.
supervision 관리, 지휘, 감독. flogger 채찍질하는 사람.
scarring 상처자국. barbaric 야만적인. sociologist 사회학자.
previous 以前(이전)의. Cop 경찰. Hood 頭巾(두건).
detail 詳述(상술)하다. beat 담당구역.
his year spent as a Baltimore beat cop 볼티모어 순찰경찰로서 보낸 1년.
evolve 진화하다. alternative 대체, 대안. penitentiaries 교도소, 感化院(감화원).
criminality 범죄성. render 만들다. penitent 懺悔(참회)하는, 뉘우치는.
rehabilitate 복원하다, 회복시키다, 復權(복권)시키다.
On this score 이점에 관해서는. prevent 예방하다. bunch 다발.
roughly 대강. incarceration 투옥, 감금. correctional control 矯正(교정)관리.
probation 보호관찰. parole 가석방, 執行猶豫(집행유예).