Corporal Punishment

The New York Times writes about corporal punishment in American schools, legal in a broad swathe of red America, but in practice overwhelmingly taking place in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. Obviously, as a good upscale liberal my instincts are overhwelmingly opposed to this. In addition, my ex ante skepticism that Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama have together hit upon a useful public policy experiment ignored by the rest of the nation is extremely high.

That said, on a subject I've given more thought to it seems to me that we actually ought to seriously consider adding a corporal punishment component to our criminal justice system. Sanctioning offenders works better when the punishment is swift and predictable, which means it helps a lot for the sanctions to be cheap, which prison is not. What's more, though caning is cruel, the reality of the American prison system -- as opposed to the hopes of reformers decades ago -- is pretty damn cruel as well. So I think there really might be something to, well, beating people rather than imprisoning them for at least some offenses. Which, I guess, means it should be on the table as something to contemplate for the schools system as well. But my conscience really rebels against the idea of hitting kids and it's not as if the rural southern counties are known world-round for their excellent schools.

Comments

Everybody must get stoned.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on September 30, 2006 08:14 AM

Maybe we could do it in the sports stadiums like the Taliban, but add the American touch of national TV coverage!

Posted by: manowar on September 30, 2006 08:30 AM

My conscious rebels against the idea of other people hitting my kids. I let know one but me and my wife discipline my kids. I have four, each of whom respond to different methods of discipline. My 6 year old boy is physically aggressive, and I think he needs to know that if he crosses a certain line he will get spanked. BTW, I dismiss any and all criticism from people who don't have kids of their own. You haven't yet earned the right.

Posted by: Del Capslock on September 30, 2006 08:42 AM

Crikey. That's "no one but me"

Posted by: Del Capslock on September 30, 2006 08:44 AM

Corporal punishment sounds a good deal more humane than an incarceration system in which the probability (for males) of being raped is quite high, and the probability of contracting HIV, conditional on being raped, is not inconsiderable.

Still, championing caning as the lesser of two evils somehow seems problematic as a political tactic, though I'm not sure why. Vaguely, it seems to share the naivite of opposing torture because its awful on a number of counts and has no redeeming features. Being a stupid liberal can be so confusing...

Posted by: Andy McLennan on September 30, 2006 09:04 AM

I don't think that liberal support for corporal or even "shame-based" punishment for some criminal infractions is particularly new. I can't point to anything, but it wasn't an embarrassing opinion to hold among the Dems-leaning folk I knew ten or fifteen years ago.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on September 30, 2006 09:12 AM

In 1965 our rural school had 100% literacy, a 0% drop out rate, a 5% teenage pregnancy rate, no filthy language, good manners and repect for teachers.

Occasionally a student would get a couple of swats on the butt with a wooden paddle.

And the system is better how?

Posted by: save_the_rustbelt on September 30, 2006 09:15 AM

"Which, I guess, means it should be on the table as something to contemplate for the schools system as well."

That makes no sense whatsever. Locking students up for several years isn't on the table now. If it's bad enough to use as an alternative to incarceration, that's an argument against subjecting little kids to it.

Posted by: David Weman on September 30, 2006 09:52 AM

I do think corporal punishment is harmful. I think it's illegal in so many countries for a reason.

Posted by: David Weman on September 30, 2006 09:56 AM

Regarding corporal punishment, it seems to me it's either so severe that it is very psychologivally traumatic, or it's not an effective deterrent for anything other than for very petty crimes, where it's pointless. So it's either too cruel or too lax.

Posted by: David Weman on September 30, 2006 10:02 AM

It'll brutalize people, and have an detrimental effect on the culture. Once it's deemed acceptable, the harshness of caning will be discounted. It really doesn't seem to horrible if you're not inclined to be empathetic. I think if you introduce caning to the mix, it will on balance make the laws even harsher. It'll only be used on petty crimes, regardless of what the original intentions are. I suspect it's too clever by half, and not really very politically savvy.

Posted by: David Weman on September 30, 2006 10:08 AM

I assume the proposal for corporal punishment would be popular, just as programs for juveniles offenders called "boot camps" are popular. I believe that studies show the progrms not to be cost effective, but some folks just like to see teenagers in crew cuts doing push ups. Stocks would have the smae appeal, whether they actually worked or not. I recogize that anecdotes aren't data, but I have represnted a lot of juveniles who committed what would be crimes, often very serious crimes, if they were adults. Only a very few, out of hundreds and hundreds, suffered from a shortage of corpoal punishment in their home lives.

Posted by: Jay C. Smith on September 30, 2006 10:19 AM

"1965 our rural school had 100% literacy, a 0% drop out rate, a 5% teenage pregnancy rate, no filthy language, good manners and repect for teachers. Occasionally a student would get a couple of swats on the butt with a wooden paddle. And the system is better how?"

Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

Posted by: Joel Eissenberg on September 30, 2006 10:32 AM

So I think there really might be something to, well, beating people rather than imprisoning them for at least some offenses.

Heck, why stop with bastinado? Why not bring home waterboarding?

Didn't we on the left just spend the last several years arguing against torture? And now, what, as soon as the GOP gets it legalized, we just give up and run with it?

Posted by: David Moles on September 30, 2006 10:44 AM

Oh come on. There are dozens of countries with much more liberal approaches to crime than ours that get much better results than ours. Shouldn't we at least try more civilized policies before we restore even more barbaric policies?

Posted by: Gary Sugar on September 30, 2006 10:50 AM

I used to think this too, when I was young and lived in pre-Giuliani NYC, but it was pointed out to me that the result would be a lot of young black men being beaten by older white men -- not a recipe for *less* anger and violence, I became convinced.

Posted by: Professor Booty on September 30, 2006 10:53 AM

Foley is now free to become the school's principal. He'll be so good meting out corporal punishment.

Posted by: Mal on September 30, 2006 10:57 AM

I think David Weman's spot on here--either the crime is so serious that simply beating them and letting them walk the streets is too lax, or the crime is so trivial that beating them is ridiculously draconian. It's hard for me to find a middle ground. Somewhere in between robbery and drunk driving, perhaps.

I also doubt corporate punishment would be "predictable". Yeah, you'll get 20 whacks, but how hard are those whacks going to be? And even if each blow was of equal kinetic energy, there's certainly no guarantee they will do the same damage--wouldn't that penalize smaller criminals over larger ones?

Posted by: Consumatopia on September 30, 2006 11:00 AM

Since parenjts have no legal ability to opt out of corporal punishment, it should not be instituted. It's a gross violation of parental authority.
In addition, I always wonder why people like this, soupposedly so well educated, ignore the entirty of social science on what using violence to correct behaviour among young people does to them.

To put it bluntly, it makes them Republicans

Posted by: Soullite on September 30, 2006 11:22 AM

Spankings don't seem like such a great idea to me - the distance between the act and the punishment would seem to make them less useful as a deterrent, and would also increase resentment. At my school, we didn't have spankings, but the teachers could administer physical punishments relying on their own creativity, such as making one kneel on the hard floor, a tug on the sideburns, or sometimes worse if someone really got out of line. The system had several advantages - it was immediate, it was often funny, and it seems like a more natural interaction b/w student and teacher than a situation in which either the teachers are forbidden to punish, or in which the punishment is too highly ritualized.

Posted by: Michael on September 30, 2006 11:26 AM

In addition, my ex ante skepticism that Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama have together hit upon a useful public policy experiment ignored by the rest of the nation is extremely high.
...
it's not as if the rural southern counties are known world-round for their excellent schools.

Tangential, but I do wish that more Democrats (not the ones running for office, since they'd probably be justified in not wanting to offend in this case) would point out that Southern states are badly governed, and have little really going for them other than a relatively low cost of living (with corresponding wages) and mild winters. Louisiana has long been the gold standard for corruption regardless of party, Mississippi & Alabama are barely first-world areas, and more heavily populated states like Texas & Florida only do the right thing when the sheer scale of the disasters in governance facing lawmakers forces it.

BTW, I grew up in Mississippi and paddling ("getting licks") was indeed the norm-- in grade school, my principal (who we all did love) would do a mock paddling on one's birthday, and one coach/teacher in high school was particularly bad, although his mostly-white baseball players actually often got the worst of it. He did throw a desk in my drivers' ed class once, as I recall... good thing our baseball team was excellent, I guess. I got paddled-- one lick-- once, when my entire seventh-grade math class got out of control when the teacher went to the office, so we all got lined up.

Posted by: latts on September 30, 2006 11:47 AM

I completely disagree with Matt. Giving the government the formal power to brutalize people in custody opens the door to hell. Once we normalize the idea that massive pain can be inflicted deliberately, there's no end to it.

Institutionalized brutality works not only against those punished but also against those who deliver the punishment. Get used to the idea that your job is to cause pain, and you eliminate your ability to understand your victim's humanity. Eventually you'll end up with little Abu Ghraibs in every locality. The people whose job is to physically punish will become monsters, and the larger public that lives with both punishers and the punished will acclimate itself to brutality as an everyday thing.

Here be dragons. Do not even start this.

Posted by: jimBOB on September 30, 2006 11:53 AM

I think Matt is right that swift and reasonably certain sanctions are a better deterrent to crime than uncertain and harsher sanctions. However, I don't think the reason "swift and predictable" punishments are not currently imposed in the criminal justice system has to do with the nature of the sanctions. Instead, I think it has to do with (a) catching people for criminal conduct---for example, the number of arrests and convictions for offenses like drug dealing and drunk driving are very low compared to how frequently these offenses are committed; (b) the time it takes to respect (even nominally) the rights of the accused; and (c) the variability of punishment injected by our plea bargaining system. So I think even if we added caning, stocks, etc. to our list of approved punishments they would be impeted out as infrequently, as slowly, and as variably as the current system.

I suppose these problems don't apply in the schools where teachers probably directly observe the conduct in question. But I think schools have many possible sanctions that they can impose immediately that are not as humiliating and disrespectful.

Posted by: FTJ on September 30, 2006 12:25 PM

I definitely think that the Northern Schools may have too strict a restriction on corporal punishment. My friends who are teachers say they can only touch a child on the forearm - one said that he watched two kids assault a third, and when he broke it up, was later lectured for doing so.

Also, for those people who say only they discipline their children - I don't have kids, but I have a lot of friends - my friends whose parents constantly undermined every other authority figure seem to have a lot more trouble in the workplace. One girl related to me that when she misbehaved at a child's party at age 5, she was directed by the child's parents to take a "time out" on the stairs. When her parents arrived, they told her never to let anyone else discipline her. There are similar stories from her involvement in the school system. None of these punishments were corporal, but her parents always trusted her over the authority figures. She thinks this was a great way to get raised. I've noticed that she has been fired or let go from about 1/2 of her jobs.

Posted by: MDtoMN on September 30, 2006 12:32 PM

Did Matthew get mugged recently? Or was that one of the roommates? I was thinking about the old saw about what liberals who get mugged turn into...

Interestingly, Jane Galt recently made a similar argument:

I agree with Mr Delong that deterrence and retribution are legitimate questions of justice--but I also think that jail is lousy, immoral, and highly inefficient way to achieve them.

[...]
Inefficient because criminals are very bad discounters of time, or they wouldn't be criminals. Expensive, long prison terms aren't very effective deterrants. Optimal punishments are short, extremely harsh, and immediate.

Immoral because the great tragedy of human life is the finiteness of time; I'm not sure we ever have a right to take away someone else's pitifully few moments simply to punish them. Locking people up because they are a danger to others is a necessary evil; locking them up because we can't think of anything else to do with to them is not. Morally, I should think a public whipping post vastly preferable--and more effective--than a one-year jail term.

My readers, particularly my more sensitive liberal ones, are even now recoiling in horror at my barbaric suggestion. But we all know that in fact the real punishment offered by prison is that meted out by other prisoners--that for many or most people, a prison sentence is a long and barbaric series of beatings and rapes. We know that this is true; we do almost nothing to prevent it; and we send people there anyway. Indeed, this is the aspect of prison--not the incarceration away from families, friends, and good takeout--with which cops threaten suspects. I should think a clean, quick beating from a government official would be more to anyone's taste--except the of course the animals who rule the prison dominance hierarchy.

Posted by: Al on September 30, 2006 12:42 PM

I went to a very small rural school in coastal North Carolina, which, in the early-mid 80s, did practice corporal punishment (rulers on the hand and the paddle on the buttocks for more severe offenses). The school's students, which school served four fishing villages with a combined population just above 1,000 and which housed K-8 in one building, consistently scored higher than state and national averages on the standardized tests then current (and still do, if the signs on the front are a reliable indicator); and I can reliably report that none of my classmates were ever traumatized by the indifferent and irregular paddlings (except perhaps one sensitive child who still remembers an injust ruler smacked against an innocent palm for alleged talking and who may have produced a Foucaultian disquisition on the subject had the rural school's library managed to stock Discipline and Punish, which I'm sure is less of a problem in your more upscales, but recall the reddened eyes to read, that sophistication without experience is blind...)

Posted by: Jonathan on September 30, 2006 12:47 PM

Unlike Rustbelt, my suburban junior high school, where nearly everyone received "whacks," had a teen pregnancy problem (8th and 9th graders, mind you), considerable drug use (including heroin), fighting in the halls nearly every day (several kids wound up in the hospital over the time I was there), and so on. This was in a middle-class suburb in Ohio -- in 1967.

Posted by: idlemind on September 30, 2006 12:51 PM

Why, of course, considering that our prison system rivals Stalin's gulag for the quality of justice dispensed, we should consider regressing further- say, to the floggings that the Duke of Wellington found so useful. His troops loved him, dontcha know?

But why stop there? If flogging will restore them to morality, why not cut off a hand and make them model citizens?

And, certainly, the mild and fleeting lesson embodied in a newspaper report should be replaced by the permanent display, on stakes along the roads, of the heads and lifeless bodies of those who have offended society.

Why, if that won't restore public morality, I just don't know what will.

Posted by: serial catowner on September 30, 2006 01:51 PM

Gandhi can overthrow a colonial power without a paddle, but we cannot maintain the obediance of schoolchildren without?

Posted by: JackSc on September 30, 2006 01:53 PM

Well this is new: arguing by similarity from beatings for criminals to beatings for misbehaving students.

Parallels? Well timed beatings are effective behavior modifiers.
Dissimilarities? Misbehaving students aren't criminals.

This is a joke, right?

Actually, retributive theories of justice, and punishment, have been sort of overwhelmingly rejected as rational solutions to crime and criminal behavior: they don't deter crime and they tend to increase recidivism. Alternatively, however, they do - idealy - restore the anguish experienced by those involved to its pre-crime balance (i.e., equal). Perhaps this is what's going on in Texas, Alabama, etc., a sort of general imbalance in the education-related pain teacher's experience relative to their joyful and innocent students. Dobson and his cohorts on these state education boards no doubt feel that such an imbalance, if it exists, must be rectified, and that teacher's are justified in doing so. The argument is simple: isn't the very act of being punished previdence of improper, intentionally harmful behavior?

Restitution, on the other hand, seems to offer some promise of adequate punishment with more pro-social benefits for society as well as the criminal. Restitution applied to misbehaving children is simply, I dunno ... compassion?

Posted by: scudbucket on September 30, 2006 02:31 PM

In 1965 our rural school had 100% literacy, a 0% drop out rate, a 5% teenage pregnancy rate

Really? Nobody was dropping out to work on the family farm? I call bullshit.

Posted by: Aaron S. Veenstra on September 30, 2006 02:50 PM

No doubt one can imagine concrete circumstances in which corporal punishment would seem a sensible option. But the institution of corporal punishment is something else. It will inevitably be abused--if not usually, often enough to be more morally corrupting than whatever it was designed to counter. And in a school setting, remember, there would be no "hearings" or other judicial process. The teacher would be judge and jury.

Posted by: Matt on September 30, 2006 03:32 PM

In 1965 our rural school had 100% literacy, a 0% drop out rate, a 5% teenage pregnancy rate, no filthy language, good manners and repect for teachers.

Occasionally a student would get a couple of swats on the butt with a wooden paddle.

And the system is better how?

Really? I assume you're being facetious here, because the data does not bear this out.

Posted by: freddyboy on September 30, 2006 03:36 PM

Are highly successful countries, like Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands using corporal punishment?

Posted by: ferd on September 30, 2006 03:53 PM

I once heard about this crazy thing in some criminal justice systems. Not only does it avoid incarceration and apply justice swiftly, it actually raises government revenue! It's called fining. When someone commits a crime, they actually take away some of their money! There are many upsides. The government doesn't have to hire people to legally brutalize its citizenry, it doesn't make the rest of the world percieve us as barbaric, it isn't unconstitutional, it doesn't inherently condone a violent criminal justice system, and, just like beatings, it can be applied in handy quanta based on the severity of the crime.

But I do like your attitude. Instead of dealing with the human rights violations and cruelty of our criminal justice system, we should just institutionalize it!

Posted by: Sam L. on September 30, 2006 04:12 PM

"Maybe we could do it in the sports stadiums like the Taliban, but add the American touch of national TV coverage!"

In Idiocracy, public executions (administered by monster trucks and called "rehabilitation") are the most popular TV show.

Posted by: RWB on September 30, 2006 04:15 PM

Recommended reading: Kipling's Stalky and Co. It a "school" book -- smart kids vs nasty teachers -- but the pulse of the book is pain. Usually, but not always, inflicted by the headmaster via caning. At one point, the headmaster canes the entire school on their way home for holidays. And they cheer him for doing it. It's a strange book.

I presume that the headmaster caned the students to get them stoic about it. Or something like that. The school specialized in getting its students into Sandhurst, so pain and death weres going to be constant professional companions. Learn to face it early. The heroes -- Stalky and Co -- seem to get lickings about every 6 months or so, and during one of the worst, the headmaster acknowledges, while telling his charges to stand still, that were the school one for the lower classes that he'd probably face jail time for assault. (This would have been in the 1880s. So, even then, the application of physical agony upon students was losing favor.)

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on September 30, 2006 04:39 PM

Back when I was in elementary school, a time when we wrote using clay tablets as papyrus hadn't yet been invented, the principal kept discipline through copious use of The Strap. It was a leather thong about a foot in length, unassuming in appearance but capable of causing significant though temporary pain when applied to the palms of one's hands. The principal, a thoroughly unpleasant man in late middle age, actually seemed to enjoy using The Strap. During my first couple of years in the school the principal was an older lady incapable of swinging The Strap with sufficient vigor, so a teacher was deputized whenever it was administered to boys in the seventh or eighth grades. The Strap was not unique to my school, but had its counterparts in all the other 15 or so elementary schools in the city.
Speaking of the "boys" part, gender equality was still in its infancy at the time, so it should come as no surprise that only boys ever received The Strap. Some boys got it on a near-weekly basis, but in my seven years in the school (second through eighth grades) I only received it two or three occasions, each time for fighting.
Was The Strap crude? For sure. Was it effective? Well, for most kids it was a reasonably good deterrent; the fact that some boys got it on a regular basis is mainly a testament to the fact that they were too stupid to think in terms of actions and consequences. Also, some boys in the seventh and eighth grades took a sort of pride in receiving The Strap and not expressing any discomfort, thereby demonstrating their toughness. This was especially true on the occasions (I'd guesstimate about half the time) that it was administered in front of a class rather than in the principal's office.
From what I heard, use of The Strap in the city's schools was prohibited within a few years of my graduation from elementary school; indeed, even when I was in school its use was somewhat controversial. Today of course it would be completely unthinkable.

Posted by: Peter on September 30, 2006 07:02 PM

Slow down there, Matt.

You have to take into account the developmental differences between adults and kids. Even the group of researchers, psychologists and medical professionals who argue that corporal punishment, used appropriately, can be effective and not harmful to children are talking about and recommending it only for kids in a certain range--basically elementary school kids up to somewhere before puberty. Obviously, you oughtn't use corporal punishment with very small kids (infants, toddlers). But it's also not that great for older kids, and probably not that great for adults, either.

That said, while I know it would be morally wrong, it's very hard for me not to want all kinds of physical pain to be inflicted on people who molest children.

Posted by: flippantangel on September 30, 2006 08:25 PM

I went to a Jr High School and a High School that used corporal punishment and I have to admit the way it was done worked out pretty well. First, there was no singling people out. A whole class (20-30 students, always boys) got hit with a paddle or nobody did, and it was always done in front of everybody, no weirdo sessions in back rooms after hours. Some kids had problems with it and it took some time to get them through the experience, but once they were through it there was a sense of having passed through some harrowing but edifying ordeal. The best part (IMO) was that after you got swatted, you were back to a clean slate, no lingering guilt or taint of transgression. I don't think it's a good general policy, and too easy to screw up, but done even moderately well it has advantages over ostensibly kinder approaches.

Posted by: groaci_sj on September 30, 2006 08:48 PM

Have you lost your mind? Or is this some Swiftian thing? Let's beat people instead of prison? How about stoning? Fire hoses? Torture? My most generous interpretation is that you think corporal punishment is the only alternative available. Surely if you don't like prison, you could come up with something that is less barbaric, not more.

Please tell me you're kidding.

Posted by: bobbo on September 30, 2006 10:51 PM

Okay, here are a few thoughts on "pain as punishment" as part of the criminal justice system.

1) Opt-in. "Mr. Smith, you have been convicted of simple assault and resisting arrest, and are sentenced to eight months in the state penitentiary. You may, if you chose, substitute corporal punishment and probation for some or all of your incarceration period."

2) Self-administered. I'm thinking in terms of an electric shock-- you sit down in the restraining chair, electrodes are attached to one hand and one foot, and then *you* punch the button. Each click subjects you to 10 seconds of electricity at a voltage/amperage sufficient to cause severe pain without inflicting permanent damage, with a 30-second lockout on each button press so finger spasms can't over-shock you. You can stop at any time, but each time you press the button you take a week off your jail term. Doctors are standing by, and you receive a medical checkup with an electro-cardiogram before and after the punishment process. You can have one friend there with you to support you. There are guards present to prevent escape, but they are not allowed to do anything beyond connecting and disconnecting the chair restraints and attaching the electrodes. The whole process is videotaped, and any guard touching the button for any reason is fired and subject to criminal prosecution.

3) Private. The videotape would be reviewed by an officer of the court to certify that you actually did suffer the punishment you claim and that there was no outside interference. Its contents are certified, and the tape is destroyed.

4) Probation. The goal here is to make sure that the punishment has led to a modification of behavior. One of the theoretical virtues of incarceration is the ability to observe the offender's behavior over a period of time and watch for signs of recidivism; probation gives much of that benefit without the cost.

5) Limited. Not available in felony cases, not available to repeat offenders.

What are the advantages?

1) Cheaper for the state-- goes without saying

2) Cheaper for the offender-- Several weeks of missed income-- plus probable loss of employment-- is a significant financial burden. Get your corporal punishment in on Saturday and you can be back at work Monday.

3) Fairness-- monetary fines are a problem because it means that richer people are punished less. (A $1500 fine for mean means a lot less sushi for a month or so. A $1500 fine for some of my coworkers means they can't pay rent this month.)

4) Fewer petty criminals in prison means fewer are further corrupted by the prison environment. Part of the problem with our current system is that we have three goals-- deterrence, rehabilitation, and warehousing-- and only one prison system. The fewer rehabilitatable criminals end up in prison, the better we can do the warehousing job.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I think this is worthwhile as a subject of discussion. Our current system combines inhumanity with inefficiency; it shouldn't be hard to improve upon this worst of all possible worlds.

Posted by: Dave Pooser on September 30, 2006 10:52 PM

So, what is the difference between deliberately inflicting phsyical pain on someone and torture?

As someone who works on the margins of the criminal justice system, I would suggest that the problem isn't lack of swift painful punishments but its over all incoherancy.

The prison system works, it just doesn't achieve its stated goals of reforming prisoners. It does, however, segregate an underclass who are not needed in our current economy from the rest of society. While you or I might not agree that this is a valuable process to invest millions of dollars and lives in, other people seem to. If it were broken, people would seriously be trying to fix it.

I say this as someone who works for a post-release employment program. Why is it that there isn't more money for job training and education for people in prison? The costs of getting people self-sufficient more than pays for itself in reduced recidivism. It just isn't a priority.

Posted by: Justaguy on October 1, 2006 08:33 AM

Justaguy puts his finger on it. Prison is a way of separating and confining 'troublemakers'.

For instance, how long would Matt flog the inmate who has committed the 'crime' of smoking marijuana? Or the parents who committed the 'crime' of letting their son keep marijuana in his room?

These types of inmates comprise about a half of the prison population. Swift and sure justice would be to open the doors and let them go.

At the bottom line, the prison system may be a final attempt to deny the franchise to the black male. As satisfying as it might be to some white people to simply flog the blacks. it would accomplish neither their goals nor ours.

Posted by: serial catowner on October 1, 2006 01:43 PM

So I think there really might be something to, well, beating people rather than imprisoning them for at least some offenses.

Matt, I hope to God that was a joke!

Posted by: shreeharsh on October 1, 2006 05:33 PM

I wonder how the pro-corporal punishment crowd proposes to screen for the inevitable perverts and sadists that will be attracted to school systems with such a policy.

I was in 9th grade at an all boys catholic high school in 1970 where corporal punishment was the preferred answer to any discipline problem, real or imagined. I my history class, a lay teacher made it a point to give as many swats a he could "justify". He used 50-100% of his strength depending on his whim at the moment. Some boys were actually propelled out of the classroom by his swats. He drilled holes in his paddle to improve airflow and increase pain. He seemed to really enjoy giving swats, especially to those, like me, who tried to be perfect so as not to "deserve" one. In the hallways between classes, he always had a retinue of kool kids, I never could figure why. Maybe it was a play for clemency or mercy the next time their number was up. I have no idea if it worked. I just know he made it a point to give every one of us at least one swat before the year was up. One day, when my answer to a question betrayed the fact I hadn't adequately studied the assignment, he was almost triumphant, since half the year was over and he hadn't got me yet. I estimate I got about an 80% power rating on the swat-o-meter. The last guy he got was the straight-A kid, for not knowing the right answer to a question I thought was deliberately so obscure that it had to be designed for the task of catching the kid out. My English and Latin teachers also gave swats, both using as much power as they wanted on whim, and seeming to enjoy it as much as the history teacher. Rumor had it that the English teacher had been dismissed from his previous position for swatting a kid through a closed window. My PE instructor gave swats too, though seemingly without pleasure - never more than ~30% and only to smartaleks who sassed him in front of other students.

My love of education died that year, and I went from almost straight A's in 8th grade to C- and drugs by the 10th. I turned into the class clown. After graduating, I hated teachers so much I delayed college for a year. When I finally started, I remember being surprised to be treated with respect by the state college profs. They were so much more decent than the catholic teachers it helped me reenter the world of learning and put my psyche back together.

So I believe that finding and keeping teachers who can inspire students and maintain classroom discipline without violence is job 1.

Arthur Silber did a great job of making the case against corporal punishment. If you care about the issue, go and read him here: http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2006/02/essays-based-on-work-of-alice-miller.html

Posted by: excatholic on October 1, 2006 11:04 PM

I say we start by waterboarding everyone who voted for the torture bill and move on to branding the 60 million who voted for Bush in 2004. I am torn between the historical scarlet A for ass hat or the more modern C for coward.

If Dems want to support harsher measures for petty crime the winner issue is traffic fines. Start by proposing mandatory license revocation for all drivers who run red lights and then move on to the Finish model of sliding scale fines for other violations. The clown blowing through red lights in the giant SUV may think differently after being hit with a ten grand fine. Everyone hates agressive drivers and traffic scofflaws.

Posted by: cane & able on October 2, 2006 02:53 AM

Good comment.Thanks admin.

Posted by: youtube on November 16, 2007 02:49 PM

"Let's beat people instead of prison? How about stoning? Fire hoses?"
Sure. It beats prison.

"Torture?"
Prison is a torture chamber.

"My most generous interpretation is that you think corporal punishment is the only alternative available. Surely if you don't like prison, you could come up with something that is less barbaric, not more."
Are you high? Smacking someone around a bit is more barbaric than state sanctioned rape?

Posted by: are you high? on January 19, 2008 06:17 PM

Thanks. Veryy good.!

Posted by: sevgi on January 31, 2008 01:49 PM

Kim Bir Milyon İster Yarışma Programı Başvuru Forumu ve kuralları

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slm

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thanks ;)

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thanks ;)

Posted by: firefox indir on April 1, 2008 07:11 AM

thank you

Posted by: maswey on April 10, 2008 06:51 AM

i think its a good idea to reintroduce cp. i suggest it is an effective way of discplining ppl. let us ask ourself why crime rate keeps on increasing ?.well my answer would be people express too much on their rights than their roles.when a person who has done and is being punished theres a slightly chance that he/she would do it again since he/she would be scared of getting beaten the second time. ALSO TO MAKE THIS CLEAR CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IS NOT A FORM OF ABUSING PPLS RIGHT IT ONLY TRIES TO THEM IN THE RIGHT WAY.

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tesekkurlerrrrrrrrrrrr

Posted by: aşk şiirleri on June 2, 2008 05:19 AM

Get real do you people not care about the future, can you not see that children today no longer have respect for anyone or anything. Life is easy breezy no commitment, no responsibility, no anything. Actions no longer have consequenses. In the future these children will be useless, I feel sorry for them, all you minority do gooders need to get real. We as a society are not helping children, young people we are bringing up a generation of lazy, irresponsible anachists, I no longer wish to grow old because these children will be my carers and I doubt they will be capable, let alone responsible or smart enough to do the job.

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