The Torah's ethos of punishment
This write-up highlights the Torah's philosophy to punishment, namely, that it's aim is to provide justice, rehabilitation and prevention; not dehumanization and debasement. In a couple of places, both in Ki Seitzei, the Torah discusses a reality where the demands of justice require a corporal response and yet in both places emphasizes the need to preserve human dignity and that the punishment not spill over into unnecessary degradation and the stripping away of the offender's humanity. In both cases the Torah employs a word root that bespeaks dishonor and ignominy—קל(ל)ה—to describe the debasement it seeks to avoid. The first (Devarim 21:22-23) centers on where a person need be hung (either as deterrence [Chazal]), or to kill him [e.g., Qumran text, Peshitta]), with the Torah cautioning that it not be overdone, as that will result in unnecessarily mortifying debasement—כִּי קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים תָּלוּי (,הגר"א דברים כ"א:כ"ג: כי קללת אלהים תלוי – אלהים הוא להפל