Therapy for Offenders

[475 words] A newspaper headline read, “Man Gets 176 years for Sex Trafficking.” The man pleaded guilty to 33 counts ranging from trafficking for sexual servitude to statutory rape. Such headlines are common today. Though they pale in comparison to the life sentence plus 1,000 years that Ariel Castro received for h.is unspeakable crimes of kidnaping and rape of three young girls, these reports remind us of how sick the world is. As I read this story, there was something about the numbers that struck me: 176 years and 33 counts. My mind went back to a familiar number in the Old Testament: 40. That was the number of stripes that could be laid to the back of an offender under the law of Moses: “And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be…