minor crime, the subject of jokes and televised trials. However,nthe same book out of which we read the rights to rapistsnand murderers gets thrown in the face of anyone who challengesnthe regime either by protesting taxes or making an insensitivenremark.nLast and least, a criminal justice system for a civilized peoplenshould be humane, that is, it should not violate the integritynof our human nature. Human beings are, in principle,nautonomous souls with an inherent right to make their ownndecisions and to abide by the consequences. Any attempt tonreform them against their will is inherently evil, because it deniesnthe “jjersonhood” of the offender. The whole underlying notionnof rehabilitation is not merely bogus — few people, after all,ncan actually be reformed by an institution — it is profoundlynevil. If I have robbed or injured someone, then let me payna just penalty; that is society’s right. What no one has a rightnto do is to fiddle with my conscience, by sleep-teaching, hypnosis,ndrugs, therapy sessions, or solitary confinement. If myncharacter is so bad that it must be altered by force, then killnme and be done with it, but do not try to rob me of mynsoul. If ever there were a punishment that could be describednas cruel and unusual, it would be long-term imprisonment combinednwith the ministrations of counselors.nSince none of these objectives is being met by the currentnsystem of imprisonment and parole, it is time to think of alternatives.nWe do not have to reflect very long to recall thatnthroughout human history, societies have had recourse to a varietynof punishments and only rarely experimented with prisons,nexcept as holding tanks for criminals awaiting trial or sentencingnand convicts awaiting execution. These methods ranged fromnthe pillory to the gallows and could easily be reinstituted in ansystem designed to meet the peculiar needs of postcivilized man.nShame is the ideal method of punishment for lawbreakersnvAo still have a conscience or a sense of face. For juvenile offenders,nnothing could be more effective than to subject them tonthe pillory in their own school yard or expose them to ridiculenon closed-circuit television shown to their gym class. The samentechniques could be applied to older but nonviolent criminalsnwho value their reputation. Peculating congressmen, teachers,nand clergymen who violate the trust we put in them, and allnsuch pillars of the community, could be degraded in variousnways on a special segment of the evening news. They might alsonbe compelled to wear some badge of shame, wherever they went,nto warn strangers against their wiles.nFor many of us, however, the pillory needs to be accompaniednby a more forcible reininder, and it used to take months to healna set of stripes inflicted by a good flogger. More than fifty ornsixty lashes is probably excessive, although the English usednto lay them on by the hundreds. For white-collar criminals, thenharshest punishment would be the payment of confiscatory finesnlevied upon their incomes for a period of years. (Defaultersnwould face sterner measures.) The few million paid by Mr.nBoesky are not enough, and the money should not have gonento the government but to his victims.nSome thought should also be given to compensating victimsnof theft and violence. If someone invades my home and stealsnthe television, it is not enough just to get the set back. The burglarnmust be made to pay me for the inconvenience and thenfright. A few thousand dollars, enough for a week in Paris, mightnmake me feel so good that I would look back with pleasure onnthe event. Criminals guilty of capital crimes might be madento sell off their organs^to a hospital and give the money to theirn12/CHRONICLESnnnvictims’ families. It sounds grisly, but not nearly so grisly as rapenand murder.nNext in order of severity among traditional penalties isnmutilation, the loss of a limb. A career pickpocket, if deprivednof a finger or two, might consider another profession, and ifnhe did not he might find himself with no hands at all. If wenshrink from applying the death penalty to a first-time rapist,nthen there is an obvious piece of surgery that could be performed.nMany political crimes could best be treated by banishment,nand it would be small loss never to see the faces of AlannCranston or Tony Coelho in these United States, but for manynserious crimes the only just and fitting punishment is death.nThese are all, it goes without saying, crimes against persons andnall involve death or the threat of death. As a bare minimum,nmurder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, and arson should allnbe capital crimes, because in each case the criminal has eithernkilled or threatened to kill his innocent victims. For everythingnbut murder, we might well wish to consider mitigation for manyn(although not all) first-time offenders, but a man who makesna habit of sticking a pistol up a 7-Eleveri clerk’s nose will soon!ernor later pull the trigger. : ‘nMy father always told me never to point a gun at anyone j andnnever to threaten anyone! unless L meant to carry through thenthreat, because—he said—the minute you point a gun at somejone,nhe can only assume you are willing to kill him. Under thosencircumstances, he has the right to kill you first. The same reasoningnapplies to armed robbers, muggers, and rapists, who makenus slaves to terror by telling us, “Do what I want or 111 kill you.”nAliberal use of the death penalty for violent crimes oughtnto be the least controversial of my suggestions. I don’t knownhow many would-be murderers and muggers would be deterrednby the knowledge that the careers of five or ten thousand ofntheir colleagues had been intermpted by a rope (gas chambersnand electric chairs are too expensive, and their technology smacksnof a bad conscience), but at least that five or ten thousand wouldnno longer be practicing their profession. That much is certain.nBut no society can make a claim to the most mdimentary sensenof justice, if it fails to kill the killers as a matter of routine.nOf course, there may be mistakes, and an occasional innocentnman will be executed, although it is remarkable how manynwrongly convicted criminals are thugs who got fingered for thenwrong job. Mutilation, it will be said, is barbaric, but how manynmen would not give up a hand or even an arm in preferencento spending seven years in a state prison as the wife of MikenTyson?nWhat do we do in the long interim between the present injusticenand the eventual restoration of sanity, which will only takenplace after the entire collapse of what we continue to call “civilization”?nIf each generation of revolution and reform innpenology has alienated us farther and farther from the fundamentalnprinciples of justice, can we go back, if only in ournown minds, to the basics?nThe foundations of criminal justice are to be found not innthe sovereignty of the state but in the rights and duties of individualsnand families that must protect themselves againstnaggressors and take revenge for injuries received. The Greeksnnever entirely gave up the notion that murder was, after all, annaffair between families, and they invoked the city’s judicial apparatusnonly as an efficient and peaceful vehicle for handling thennegotiations. The Romans, who made more of a science of theirn