Background:

The Romans were notorious for brutally executing people who had been accused of crimes such as:

• “Following an unpopular religion”
• “A politician didn’t like you personally”
• “You were an employee and/or slave of the previous emperor”

(Interestingly, these are still popular crimes in the modern era!)

The Issue:

These capital punishments, which include the cliche classic of being fed to lions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_ad_bestias) or being drowned in a bag full of snakes, were—arguably—a tad excessive.

But maybe we can still learn from the cultures of the past. Let’s adapt the wisdom of the ancients for the modern era!

Proposal:

To reduce the vast amount of productivity lost when not-especially-dangerous members of society languish in prison, we have several options. The most obvious option is, of course, to bring back the Roman-era “damnatio ad bestias” punishment, but let’s see if we can make it a bit more humane.

For example:

• A person hit a parked car and didn’t leave a note: punishment: they are subjected to being bitted by a duck.
• A person committed insider trading:  they must tolerate a millipede crawling over their entire foot.
• A cannibal eats 50 people: they must endure a a cat kneading them with its claws.

See Figure 1 for a gruesome illustration of each of these savage punishments.

Conclusion:

This is the kind of “thinking outside of the box” justice reform that people have been clamoring for for decades.

PROS: May streamline the criminal justice system. This could save up to 0.1% of the total national budget (if we imagine that the budget were $100,000 a year, this would be like saving $100 per year!).

CONS: The people might clamor for more brutal punishments, and pretty soon people will be thrown into snake pits just because they have two unpaid parking tickets.

Originally published 2025-05-26.