Corporal punishment

Corporal punishment is a great way to get kids to behave infliction of pain intended as correction or punishment. For a broader definition ("corporal" means of, relating to, or affecting the body; that can be affected otherwise than pain-affliction, e.g. removal, incarceration), non-corporal alternatives and various general considerations such as the rationale, see under punishment.

Corporal punishment is generally held to differ from torture in that it is applied for disciplinary reasons and is therefore intended to be limited, rather than intended to totally destroy the will of the victim. Severe or prolonged forms of corporal punishment are, however, more or less indistinguishable from torture.

Studies vary when it comes to the effects of corporal punishment. Usage of corporal punishment to discipline children is a crime in seventeen countries.

Scope of use

When used for the punishment of criminals or slaves, it is usually applied using an instrument such as a cane or a whip. Other examples include the 'cat-o-nine-tails', once used in America and by the British, and the Russian knout, consisting of leather thongs with pieces of metal inserted. Ancient Romans used a similar device, the scourge.

Corporal punishment in history

While some tribal peoples had corporal punishment and others did not, it seems to have existed in all higher civilizations. Corporal and even capital punishment were long main forms of punishment in civilized societies. Roman society used a number of forms of corporal punishment including beating and mutilation. This continued throughout medieval Europe. Fines were generally a preferrential alternative, as they generate welcome income.

Since the 18th century, corporal punishment has tended to be gradually replaced by fines for lesser crimes and incarceration for those considered a danger to society, as the emphasis of criminal punishment has shifted from retribution and spectacle to reformation and surveillance. Corporal punishment proved most persistent as a punishment for violation of prison rules, as a military field punishment, and in schools.

It is sometimes thought that the punishment should follow the mirror principle (see there), often by affecting the part of the body that sinned.

Examples of corporal punishment from the Enlightenment onwards have tended to emphasise the administration of a set amount of pain by measurable procedures.

Present day corporal punishment of adults

Several societies retain widespread use of judicial corporal punishment. These include Singapore and Malaysia. The Singaporean practice of caning became much discussed in the U.S. in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay was sentenced to such punishment for an offence of car vandalism. In Singapore, male violent offenders and rapists are typically sentenced to caning in addition to a prison term.

Corporal punishment is also dictated as a punishment in traditional Islamic Sharia law, and applied in countries like Saudi Arabia.

A small minority in the West argue that corporal punishment is a quick and effective method and less cruel than long-term incarceration; they think that it should be considered in the West as an alternative to prison. Some few even want corporal punishment to replace fines.

The overwhelming majority of westerners, however, considers judicial corporal punishment a relic of a barbaric past, usually associated with dictatorships, police states, and fundamentalist regimes as Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Corporal punishment of children

Many educators use a milder form of corporal punishment called "spanking", usually slapping their child's buttocks with the palm of their hand; alternatively, they may administer a single smack on the hand with their own hand. Others punish their children with a switch or a belt, although this practice is less common than in years past.

Opinions on corporal punishment of children are varied. Whilst practice is accepted and embraced in many countries, it is also illegal in a number of others. There is pressure in some countries, including the United Kingdom, to have any form of corporal punishment of children made illegal and treated as child abuse. Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Germany, Israel, Iceland, Romania, Ukraine and Hungary have banned the corporal punishment of children entirely. In some states of the USA, paddling of children is still allowed. Recently, the US state of Massachusetts has proposed a bill banning all forms of corporal punishment on minors under 18.

Although China has made corporal punishment against children illegal in the school system, it is still widely practiced. In most part of Confucian East Asia (including China, Republic of China, Japan and Korea), it is legal to punish one's own child using physical pain. Even in parts of East Asia which are more Westernized (including Singapore and Hong Kong), punishing one's own child with corporal punishment is still either legal, only discouraged, or illegal but without active enforcement of the relevant laws. Culturally, people in the region generally believe a minimal amount of corporal punishment against their own children is appropriate and necessary. And thus such practice is tolerated by the society as a whole.

There is resistance, particularly from conservatives, against making illegal the corporal punishment of children by their parents or guardians. In 2004, the United States declined to become a signatory of the United Nations's "Rights of the Child" because of its sanctions on parental discipline, citing the tradition of parental authority in that country and of privacy in family decision-making.

A number of countries allow corporal punishment as a sanction for use by schools, though the United Kingdom has banned this practice.

Proponents of the corporal punishment of children, whilst accepting that excessive physical punishment amounts to child abuse, argue that corporal punishment, properly administered, can be the most effective form of discipline for unruly children, and even a form of reassuring control for some young adolescents. Polls consistently show that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that corporal punishment is sometimes necessary. There is also the argument that without recourse to the short, sharp smack parents may use forms of emotional violence that are actually more abusive.

Opponents argue that any form of violence is by definition abusive. It is also pointed out that much experience from psychology research indicates that usage of corporal punishment results in destruction of trust bonds between parents and children, who can grow resentful, shy, insecure, or violent. Corporal punishment is also claimed by some researchers to work against its objective (normally obedience), since children will not voluntarily obey an adult they do not trust, and will have to be regularly coerced; it could therefore be speculated whether parents are beating their children because they are disobedient, or whether they are disobedient because they are being beaten. However, anti-spanking researcher Elizabeth Gershoff dissented from this view in a 2002 study, reporting that use of corporal punishment did correlate positively with compliance in children (while maintaining that the research reinforced the other anti-spanking arguments.)

Corporal punishment, fetishism, and BDSM

Corporal punishment is sometimes fetishized, and is the basis of a number of paraphilias, most notably erotic spanking. The techniques and rituals of corporal punishment are often included in BDSM activities; see impact play. All that is outside our article, since it is voluntary, not coercion.

Types and means

While it is possible to classify corporal punishments by the categories of its scope of application (e.g. educational including parental and school discipline, other domestic, judicial etc.), i.e. by why can punish who, see above, this section elaborates the various ways to perform the physical torment.

Anatomical target

A crucial, inevitable choice is which part of the body is to suffer the painful treatment; sometimes a combination of several targets is chosen, so as to maximize the longer-lasting discomfort. Several considerations can be taken into account, mainly : how painful is it, how humiliating (especially if bared), how safe (except for deliberate mutilation -such as amputation and branding- or execution, grave permanent damage must be avoided) and how incapacitating (unless the punishee is already under custodial sentence other then hard labor, physically disabling the victim to work is rather contraproductive in stead of coercing better -obedient, productive- conduct).

By far the most popular choice (i.e. with disciplinarians: they choose) are the buttocks, indeed some languages have a specific word for their chastisement : spanking (see this elaborate article) in English, fessée in French, nalgada in Spanish (both romanesque words directly derived from the word for buttock)- this is a logical choice for these rather large, fleshy body parts are sensitive without endagering any bodily functions, heal well and relatively fast and have an intimate connotation that implies intense humilitation, often increased as baring them often also exposes the genitals
although lower parts of the back of the leg, notably thighs and calves, are reportedly about as sensitive, making them a logical alternative in cultures were a bare bottom is to indecent, they are rarely targetted
except for deliberate mutilation, the genitalia are rarely targetted, though very sensitive and most humiliating, for the damage is to hard to control (except with sophisticated modern methods such as electrodes)
joints (such as knees) are an even more illogical, indeed rather rare choice: no humiliation, grave risk of incapacitation and even permanent damage
the head is also a dangerous choice, but more popular, especailly the cheeks (relatively safe; indeed the same word is used for the bottom: butt-cheeks) and boxing the ears (hearing disability tends to manifest itself years later, so it's often ignored)
the back and the shoulders are the second most common choice; as long as the spine (paralysis possible) and excessive abuse of the kidneys (irreparable) is avoided, great pain is possible with limited incapacitation and humiliation (suitable for an adult 'honor corps' as often in the military)
the abdomen and the ribs are again rather dangerous for 'acceidental' damage, and hence not a common target

Set and props

Except for 'daily' light punishment, physical discipline is often ritualized, even staged in a rather theatrical fashion.

As the great variety of practices, even in similar jurisdictions, suggests, tradition and the taste of the punishing parties in place often carry at least as much weight as obejective practical considerations, especially if one cosiders there seems to have been relatively little effort to obtain functional knowledge from systematic comparative research.

Site & Location

While light and informal punishment is often administered on the spot, for serious discipline and in an institutional context there are often rules, either laid down as such or deriving from written rules (e.g. if a juvenile is to recieve his lashing from the police, he is logically brought there for punishment).

Apparatus

Contraptions the punishee is to be over, on and/or fixed to do not only have a practical function (which is their origin) during punishment but can also be left in place as a permanent, dissuasive display of the authority to inflict painful punishment, to deter disobedience that may cause the observing 'jurisdictional subject' to end up there for a lashing.

Falaka
frame
punishment horse
tresle

Implements

With any attempt to classify these, one must keep in mind that terminology is (ab)used with striking inconsistency from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, may change over time and can even by rather indeterminate within one at one time. Thus implements are either given names rather typical for another (e.g. normally in another material), or to general to determine either in particular, such as Flagellation While in various linking articles some such details are touched, as well as common types within (as by size, a measure of severity), here we limit ourselves to an oversight of the common types, by their 'normal' design and materials, even omitting miost significant modifications (such as knots or other small, hard objects fixed on leather to make it 'bite' the flesh).

Here we try to group the common types.

Bastinado

wooden implements:

rods, also virge, wand etcetera:
1. Birching uses a rod made from strong, flexible branches in their natutal state, normally several bound together
2. for a single one the normal term is switch (rod)
Caning uses a single thick, yet still bending bamboo stem, notable of the -very durable- species of rottan = rattan, polished
a Paddle

leather:

belting uses a belt as worn in clothing
strap or similar stirrup leather is thicker and less flexible
the tawse is like a strap but forks at one end into two or more tails
crop
whip and a myriad of variations, including the famous sjambok
scourge and martinet consist of several independently moving tails or short lashes

rope or cord:

cat o' nine tails and its diminutive the reduced cat
flogger is designed like a martinet

metal:

axe, knife, sword and other blanc weapons or even the surgical scalpel etc are generally used for punishments named otherwise than by the instrument, rather by the damage down by cutting bodyparts, as in flailing, castration or (indetermined) amputation
a hot iron is used for branding and other burns

other materials, or no typically predominant one:

ruler
strop
slippering
hairbrush (wooden or ebony backside)

pervertibles are various objects than can be used as punitive implement (mainly in BDSM or the private sphere open to improvization), so we don't go into detail; when used for coercive CP, they are generally handled as a rather obvious substitute for a similar type from the groups above- the most common are included, and ultimately nearly every implement is derived from an inoffensive utility

Dramatis personae

While a summary punishment can routinely be performed with only two participants, e.g. an educator putting a naughty child over his lap and spanking its bottom while scolding its misdeeds, there is often, especially with a more severe punishment and/or in an institutional context, a more elaborate and formalistic procedure can involve a small host of cast members, most of whom can make a difference to what exactly will happen and how

On the punishing side

It all starts with the authority to punish : for judicial punishment, this is normally the legislator, who defines the rules, at least in principle, as to which inacceptable actions are to be met with painful punishment, and who can apply them; the rules can be extremely precise, or at least aim to be, in determining a concordance between crime and punishment, or leave considerable margin; sometimes a specific case is dealt with at this very level, as for a political crime; in other spheres, often within general ruleslaid down by the actual legislator, the rules can be laid down by the school board, the master of the slaves/household, etcetera. However in real life minor punishments are often left to the ad hoc discretion of the discipliner, even where severe punishments have to be met with formal procedure- e.g.
Next there is the role of the judge, who determines for each punishable dead wether the conditions for application are met and fixes the fitting punishment; this judgment can go into more details, usually including (possibly simply repeating the specifications in the rules, sometimes modifying those) the anatomical target, the implement, the number of strokes, and wether the victim will be bared; in the non-judical spheres, this can be for example the teacher in class or the headmaster, dean of discipine etcetera (often only for graver offenses), an overseeer, any officer or subaltern, etcetera
Finally there is the actual punishment officer(s) charged with the physical execution; while in private spheres this is often the same as the 'judge', judicial sentences are generally ordered to be carried out by a third party specified by the law or in the judgment, usually the police, (para)military, prison staff or even a bailiff; imprecise judgments may leave some discretion to this level, e.g. determining with which implement to administer a punishment merely expressed in an ambivalent wording such as 'lashes', leaving a choice from the customary arsenal of implements, definitely affecting the gravity of the beating

The victim

The punished party is often described by terms referring to his legal or other punishable status, e.g. convict, prisoner, culprit, miscreant, offender, or to the type of punishment imposed, e.g. spankee, whippee. While he is the centre of attention, as a rule little or no choice is given to him (or if so it's often meant to be tantalizing, neither option being preferable, e.g. a graver implement or more cuts), and his submission or cooperation is coerced, e.g. extra swats for not maintaining the position

Third parties

medical examinator, supervisor and/or assistance
witnesses

Procedure

For further details on positions and sequence of actions, see under spanking : most is identical or derives logicaly from what is said there

External links