Putting a Punishing Spotlight on Library Book Bandits

Maybe the Puritans had it right with their public humiliation approach to handling certain crimes.

Along that line, I wonder if any state legislator has considered reintroducing the pillory and stocks into the California criminal justice system. Come to think of it, if no one in the Orange County delegation has drafted such a bill, chances are nobody else has, either.

A little history for you youngsters: Popular in colonial America, pillories and stocks were wooden devices with movable cut-out sections into which the head, hands and feet of the bad dude fit snugly. Thus immobilized, the dude would stand or sit in a public place for the length of his sentence. Fellow citizens were free to taunt as they walked by.

Alas, it remains an idea whose time has gone, and yet I’m intrigued by the prospect of passing the intersection of Harbor and Katella and seeing a row of sad sacks with their necks impounded in large wooden blocks. In keeping with colonial tradition and civic duty, I would jeer and because I take tradition and my civic duties more seriously than the average citizen, perhaps hurl some rotting fruit.

The cops would go for the idea. Very little paperwork.

The search for some appropriate penalty came to mind after reading about people who check out books from the county’s libraries and never return them. Inexplicably, the phrase “inveterate scalawag” appeared nowhere in the article.

Some of the numbers in the article were eye-opening. In the last fiscal year, Huntington Beach library patrons kept 5,100 books, which would have cost nearly $72,000. Nationally, the number of unreturned books each year is undoubtedly in the millions.

What to do with these people?

The temptation is to want to throw them into the dankest cell at San Quentin and never let them out, but bleeding hearts (all right, I’m one, too) would argue that’s too harsh. I suppose we should give the thieves credit for A) knowing where the library is in the first place, B) knowing how to read, and C) wanting to check out a book.

But not returning it? The arrogance of such an act offends mightily.

That’s where the public humiliation comes in. The perfect punishment for crimes of arrogance ought to be personal degradation. Keeping a library book as your personal possession is potentially an offense against all of us, so why not a punishment in which all of us can reap some satisfaction?

The Denver Press Club had the right idea. The club offered a stylish restaurant and pub and was a regular stop for some of the finest diners and booze-hounds in the annals of Denver journalism and polite society. But if any of those fine gentle persons got delinquent in their payments, club management posted their names on a bulletin board in full view of all patrons. The thinking was that the ne’er-do-well’s would make quick restitution.

The only flaw in that logic was that, to a journalist, seeing your name associated with an overdue bar tab in six figures became a mark of distinction. In short, it was virtually impossible to shame a newspaperman on the grounds that he drank too much.

But imagine the impact on an ordinary person if he or she were subjected to public ridicule.

Imagine if every library publicly posted the names of all its delinquent customers, along with the name of the book or books they didn’t return.

How would Grandma feel if everyone knew she was the person who checked out “The Joy of Sex” four years ago and never brought it back?

How would the guys at the pool hall treat good ol’ Fred when they found out he checked out “The Feminine Mystique” and has kept it since 1978?

Trust me, book delinquency would disappear overnight.

Library people are probably too nice to consider such measures, but the idea sounds pretty foolproof to me.

Who knows, maybe a local newspaper could be talked into publishing the names of the perpetrators, along with the names of the delinquent books and total amount of fines due.

Librarians say they’re trying to track down the culprits, but they haven’t tried the public humiliation approach yet. It would be cost-efficient, easily monitored and most important, pretty damn entertaining reading for the rest of us.

As if librarians didn’t need prodding, I wonder if they saw the article that appeared the same day as the one about stolen books. It ran on the same page and directly beneath their story.

The article hailed a new program in the county jail system: Teaching inmates to read.

Sounds like we’re breeding a whole new crop of potential book thieves.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.