Blog & Mablog The Tender Mercies of the Wicked
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Mar 3, 2026 A provocative look at criminal justice, arguing mass incarceration has warped society. Biblical penalties and alternatives like restitution, banishment, cities of refuge, flogging, and capital punishment are explored. The talk challenges modern prisons and proposes labor and restitution-based responses instead of long-term confinement.
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Penitentiaries Became A False Savior
- The modern prison system became a false savior when reformers aimed to 'fix' prisoners through isolation and labor, producing a sterile but still brutal apparatus.
- Doug Wilson traces this shift to 18th-century penitentiaries that replaced filthy brutality with systemic incarceration that fails to rehabilitate.
Biblical Law Doesn’t Prescribe Long Prison Terms
- The Bible's range of criminal penalties largely omits long-term imprisonment as punishment and uses temporary custody only for swift trials or detention.
- Wilson notes New Testament jails house apostles temporarily, consistent with Old Testament brief 'ward' detention references in Leviticus and Numbers.
Diverse Biblical Penalties Over Imprisonment
- Biblical penalties emphasize capital punishment, banishment/house arrest, and cities of refuge rather than incarceration, tailoring responses to crime severity.
- Examples include execution for murder, Solomon restricting Abiathar and Shimei to their fields or Jerusalem, and manslaughter refuge until the high priest's death.