Kind of piggybacking a little on this and this thread, I wanted to open this thread to start a focused discussion on the topic of corporal punishment as an alternative to imprisonment. According to the US Bureau of Justice, the current prison population is around 2.3 million people, with an additional 5 million people on probation or on parole. The US has the highest prison population in the world, and the cost spent on corrections in the US in 2006 was estimated at 68.7 Billion dollars. Quote from Wikipedia related to recitivism: Beyond the rates of recitivism, cost, and burgeoning prison population, there are major problems within the correctional facilities themselves. Prison conditions are difficult to maintain, and prison subcultures further otherwise petty criminals into a life of crime. So clearly, the current model not only does little to rehabilitate prisoners in the system, but prison sentences no longer serve as an adequate deterrent to stop crime. We either have the option of decriminalizing acts we consider to be crimes right now (e.g. decriminalizing drugs, legalize illegal immigrants, etc.), or begin thinking of new options when it comes to corrective measures. Hypothetically, if we knew that applying a moderate amount of corporal punishment to certain types of crimes would result in a significant reduction in crimes overall, would you be opposed to corporal punishment? Assuming that its applied only following a determination of guilt and not before it, and that we're excluding especially severe forms of corporal punishment, then why would it be such a bad thing?
Bad idea. Beating on someone because they beat on someone else usually doesn't solve much. It just continues the cycle. You want to fix the prisons in this country, fix the drug/alcohol problems in this country.
No, it doesnt necessarily continue any cycle. The idea is that the threat of someone getting beat on serves as a sufficient deterrent from them from beating in the first place. The secondary benefits of corporal punishment, such as reducing the prison population, cutting spending, etc. isnt necessarily the primary benefit behind its use. Although the drug/alcohol problems in this country definitely need to get fixed, the larger point is that the current penal system is not fulfilling its purpose effectively.
Are you talking about paddling, caning, putting them into public stocks for people to throw rotten vegetables at, or bringing back things like racks? Those are banned under the 8th Amendment and I doubt they would prove to be much of a deterrent.
Paddling and caning would be two forms, yes. Throwing rotten vegetables? Thats just silly. Racks are especially severe, and as I wrote in the first post, thats not what I'm referring to here. I'm suggesting that corporal punishment in this format (paddling, caning)- actual physical infliction of pain, could serve as a major deterrent to crime and prove to be preferable to the current system of imprisonment. The 8th amendment protects against 'cruel and unusual punishment.' The amendment was by and large a protection of inhumane historical penalties such as boiling to death, disembowelment, crucifixion, stoning to death, etc. A moderate, strategic application of corporal punishment is hardly 'cruel and unusual.' Imprisonment could just as easily be classified under that designation, as it restricts individual liberties, inhibits contact with the outside world, and removes an individual from those closest to him/her. The psychological effects of imprisonment are significant- putting offenders behind bars for extended periods of time induces a number of negative psychological problems, including frustration, depression, etc.
I think it deters a substantial number of people. FWIW, I was physically disciplined as a child, and my school had corporal punishment. People would tell my parents how well behaved we were, and no one ever disrespected the faculty or stepped out of line in school. This to me is the biggest difference between going to school overseas versus schools in the US.
Stocks are effective because of the public humiliation, rather than the position of your head and hands. I would say that punishments like these should be just as good:
Good point. I think most people can discern between parents that use moderate spanking on rare occasions to discipline their children versus parents that constantly beat their children. In the same vein, applying corporal punishment to offenders is much different than what most people associate with corporal punishments, such as stonings, castrations, hangings, torture, racks, etc. It's unfair to create a moral equivalency between the two, and I think there's a strong argument to be made that we've (we here being our society) adopted the stances we have based on the more extreme cases of corporal punishment and not the more moderate forms.
We are a society of extremist. We throw the baby out with the bathwater everytime We over react Rocket River
Putting petty criminals in public stocks and having people throw rotten vegetables at them was a pretty common practice in Europe up until a couple of 100 years ago. The interpretation of the amendment bans torture and corporal punishment in terms of infliction of severe pain as punishment would fall under torture. If you are talking about inflicting mild pain like a fraternity initiation paddle that might not fall under cruel but likely unusual and when applied to an adult would violate human dignity which is the standard that Justice Brennan laid out in Furman V Georgia. That said such mild pain would unlikely serve as a deterrent. In that case then why advocate for corporal punishment when fear of imprisonment already is a deterrent? Also the purpose of imprisonment isn't primarily just for punishment but also for public safety to remove a threat to public safety from the public.
I was just thinking that a lot of gangs use beatings as part of their initiation. Many people who play sports suffer pain as severe as getting paddled or caned. We still have street gangs and we play physical contact sports so I really don't see how corporal punishment would work as a deterrent.
That's a start, but legalization isn't going to keep a junkie from stealing your car radio unless you hand out free drugs to him. It might work in a smaller more structured society, but in the US, it would just get out of control. We don't even have the standards in place to keep from executing innocent people. What kind of standards you think would be in place for thousands of beatings that would be taking place weekly? How long would it be before someone got beat to death because of race or sexual persuasion? Also what's a black man going to feel like when you tie him up and let a white man beat him? Cops do that right now. Why do we want to give people another opportunity to abuse someone else? The reason it can't fulfill it's purpose effectively is because the system and it's characters(staff & inmate..as well as the rest of society) are overwhelmed by the problems caused by drugs/alcohol.
I actually wasnt aware of that. Quite frankly, if it works at reducing the amount of crime, then I wouldnt have any issue with it. You're probably right about the legal aspect of things, but I think you're being far too dismissive when it comes to corporal punishment and its impact as a deterrent. Flogging an individual or paddling them served as a viable deterrent in England and Whales before they decided to ban it, as it did throughout the majority of the world. The primary reason for abolishing it wasnt its lack of effectiveness, but rather on moral grounds. Hypothetically, if corporal punishment were reintroduced on a limited basis and proved to reduce the crime rate for crimes directly punishable by physical means, would you be in favor of it? I never said that imprisonment is a deterrent. I said that imprisonment could just as easily qualify as 'cruel and unusual' punishment, because designating something as 'cruel' or 'unusual' is not an exact science. Is putting prisoners in solitary confinement cruel or unusual? At some point, you accept a level of cruelty when it comes to punishing people who contravene accepted legal limitations. The reality is that in many instances, prison can both present negative psychological effects while failing to deter crime, making it doubly ineffective. I'm going to take a line from Rocket River here and say that you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just because some people have a stronger pain tolerance doesnt mean that everyone does, and just because corporal punishment wont be effective on every single person, doesnt mean that it wont be effective on the vast majority of the people. Also, gang initiations are a one-time deal, and the event itself isnt something any new gang member looks forward to. Similarly, no gang regularly initiates their members over and over again, so a solitary instance of gang initiation is unlikely to make someone accustomed to pain. The same goes for physical contact sports. You just cant compare playing football to being flogged for stealing. As a point of clarification, I'm not saying to get rid of prison entirely. As you rightly noted, prison also serves the benefit of public safety, and I dont see corporal punishment and prison as being mutually exclusive. Some crimes will likely only result in prison time, others only in corporal punishment, and some may require both.
I just don't see how caning or paddling would have a greater deterrent effect that imprisonment. Ask 100 people if they would rather get 10 licks or six months in county and I doubt many are going to opt for jail.
I think the mistake you're making is in the example. Ask 100 people if they'd rather take 50 licks or six months in county, and I'd venture to guess that the answers would be very different. The objective of punishments isnt only as a response to when crimes are committed, but so crimes dont get committed in the first case. There are obviously certain crimes which you wouldnt prosecute corporally, but in limited use cases, such as robbery, breaking and entering, extortion, and other comparable crimes, it would likely serve as a much stronger deterrent than, say, a few months in prison followed by early parole. It's difficult to state this definitively, because, like I said in my first post, there are few nations that still use corporal punishment, and those that do lack reliable crime statistics. In 1938, the Cadogan Committee on Corporal Punishment recommended the abolishing of corporal punishment because they werent satisfied that it sufficiently deterred crime any more than prison senteces, as did the Barry Committee which was convened in the 1950s. Contemporary critiques of these committee findings showed that one of the main reasons for their stance was the fact that corporal punishment had been carried out only a small number of times, meaning that there's strong evidence to suggest that the threat of corporal punishment did indeed deter otherwise would-be criminals. It's also interesting to note that in the aftermath of the abolishment, crime rates for crimes previously prosecuted by corporal punishment went up (Geoffrey Scarre details this in a journal article entitled Corporal Punishment). I'm not suggesting that its a simple thing to reinstitute, but I do believe that the discussion about using corporal punishment and its efficacy have prematurely been stiffled on moralistic grounds.
Do you have statistics regarding the effectiveness of corporal punishment in those countries? Did crime go up substantially once those were abolished? I don't have statistics but I have been to countries that use corporal punishment for petty crimes (caning). Singapore has substantially lower crime rates than the US while in Indonesia there was much more petty crime and in Malaysia it wasn't quite as bad as Indonesia. In those cases I didn't get the impression that caning was much of a factor but more of an issue of the effectiveness of the police in regard to catching and prosecuting such crimes. True "Cruel and unusual" isn't an exact science and the USSC has noted it is an evolving standard. That said if you are talking about flogging or caning keep in mind that these are much more severe than paddling. Caning (as practiced in Singapore) isn't just a few swats with a cane like a jockey would do to a horse but is closer to whipping. The rattan is fairly flexible and will snap and tear at skin and muscle tissue and will leave permanent scars. And of course this is flogging. Spoiler <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nDOPJawut4Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Gang life though tends to be violent and risky so its not like you get a beating and then everything is peaches and cream. I agree you can't compare flogging (which I banned under the 8th) with football but the amount of pain frequently suffered in football is comparable and in many cases exceed that of paddling. I haven't been paddled in decades but from what I recall I have suffered much greater pain doing martial arts and even playing basketball yet the pain of that doesn't dissuade me from doing those. While yes not everyone has the pain tolerance as me but I highly doubt that those with low pain tolerances will get into a life of crime. (Unless you are talking white collar crime and in that case I could be convinced that Enron execs should've been flogged. ) As SM noted I really don't see this as much of a solution and there might be many criminals who would more willingly put up with corporal punishment rather than go to jail. In that case it might work the opposite as a deterrent.
Will this include the Wall Street profit whores who tanked our country's economy, or just people who shoplift a clean pair of socks from Wal Mart?
