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A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or paddling. When it is inflicted on adults, it may be inflicted on prisoners and slaves, and can involve methods such as whipping with a belt or a horsewhip.

Physical punishments for crimes or injuries, including floggings, brandings and even mutilations, were practised in most civilizations since ancient times. They have increasingly been viewed as inhumane since the development of humanitarianism ideals after the Enlightenment, especially in the Western world. By the late 20th century, corporal punishment was eliminated from the legal systems of most developed countries.<ref name="BritannicaCP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The legality of corporal punishment in various settings differs by jurisdiction. Internationally, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries saw the application of human rights law to the question of corporal punishment in a number of contexts:

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> As of 2021, it remains lawful in parts of Africa, Asia, the Anglophone Caribbean and indigenous communities in several countries of South America.<ref name="globalpartnership" />

  • Prison corporal punishment or disciplinary corporal punishment, ordered by prison authorities or carried out directly by correctional officers against the inmates for misconduct in custody, has long been common practice in penal institutions worldwide. It has officially been banned in most Western civilizations during the 20th century, but is still employed in many other countries today. Punishments such as paddling, foot whipping or different forms of flagellation have been commonplace methods of corporal punishment within prisons. This was also common practice in the Australian penal colonies and prison camps of the Nazi regime in Germany.
  • Military corporal punishment is or was allowed in some settings in a few jurisdictions.

In many Western countries, medical and human rights organizations oppose the corporal punishment of children. Campaigns against corporal punishment have aimed to bring about legal reforms in order to ban the use of corporal punishment against minors in homes and schools.

HistoryEdit

PrehistoryEdit

Author Jared Diamond writes that hunter-gatherer societies have tended to use little corporal punishment whereas agricultural and industrial societies tend to use progressively more of it. Diamond suggests this may be because hunter-gatherers tend to have few valuable physical possessions, and misbehavior of the child would not cause harm to others' property.<ref name="Diamond">Template:Cite book</ref>

Researchers who have lived among the Parakanã and Ju/'hoansi people, as well as some Aboriginal Australians, have written about the absence of the physical punishment of children in those cultures.<ref name="Gray">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Wilson writes:

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AntiquityEdit

In the Western world, the corporal punishment of children has traditionally been used by adults in authority roles.<ref>Rich, John M. (December 1989). "The Use of Corporal Punishment". The Clearing House, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 149–152.</ref> Beating one's son as a form of punishment is even recommended in the book of Proverbs:

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Robert McCole Wilson argues that, "Probably this attitude comes, at least in part, from the desire in the patriarchal society for the elder to maintain his authority, where that authority was the main agent for social stability. But these are the words that not only justified the use of physical punishment on children for over a thousand years in Christian communities, but ordered it to be used. The words were accepted with but few exceptions; it is only in the last two hundred years that there has been a growing body of opinion that differed. Curiously, the gentleness of Christ towards children (Mark, X) was usually ignored".Template:Sfnp

File:Falaka-Iran.jpg
Foot whipping an offender, Persia, 1910s

Corporal punishment was practised in Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome in order to maintain judicial and educational discipline.Template:Sfnp Disfigured Egyptian criminals were exiled to Tjaru and Rhinocorura on the Sinai border, a region whose name meant "cut-off noses." Corporal punishment was prescribed in ancient Israel, but it was limited to 40 lashes.<ref>Deuteronomy 25:1-3</ref> In China, some criminals were also disfigured but other criminals were tattooed. Some states gained a reputation for their cruel use of such punishments; Sparta, in particular, used them as part of a disciplinary regime which was designed to increase willpower and physical strength.Template:Sfnp Although the Spartan example was extreme, corporal punishment was possibly the most frequent type of punishment. In the Roman Empire, the maximum penalty which a Roman citizen could receive under the law was 40 "lashes" or 40 "strokes" with a whip which was applied to the back and shoulders, or 40 lashes or strokes with the "fasces" (similar to a birch rod, but consisting of 8–10 lengths of willow rather than birch) which were applied to the buttocks. Such punishments could draw blood, and they were frequently inflicted in public.

Quintilian (Template:CircaTemplate:Circa) voiced some opposition to the use of corporal punishment. According to Wilson, "probably no more lucid indictment of it has been made in the succeeding two thousand years".Template:Sfnp

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Plutarch, also in the first century, writes:

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Middle AgesEdit

In Medieval Europe, the Byzantine Empire blinded and removed the noses of some criminals and rival emperors. Their belief that the emperor should be physically ideal meant that such disfigurement notionally disqualified the recipient from office. (The second reign of Justinian the Slit-nosed was the notable exception.) Elsewhere, corporal punishment was encouraged by the attitudes of the Catholic church towards the human body, flagellation being a common means of self-discipline. This had an influence on the use of corporal punishment in schools, as educational establishments were closely attached to the church during this period. Nevertheless, corporal punishment was not used uncritically; as early as the 11th century Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury was speaking out against what he saw as the excessive use of corporal punishment in the treatment of children.<ref>Wicksteed, Joseph H. The Challenge of Childhood: An Essay on Nature and Education, Chapman & Hall, London, 1936, pp. 34–35. Template:OCLC</ref>

ModernityEdit

From the 16th century onwards, new trends were seen in corporal punishment. Judicial punishments were increasingly turned into public spectacles, with public beatings of criminals intended as a deterrent to other would-be offenders. Meanwhile, early writers on education, such as Roger Ascham, complained of the arbitrary manner in which children were punished.<ref>Ascham, Roger. The scholemaster, John Daye, London, 1571, p. 1. Republished by Constable, London, 1927. Template:OCLC</ref>

Peter Newell writes that perhaps the most influential writer on the subject was the English philosopher John Locke, whose Some Thoughts Concerning Education explicitly criticised the central role of corporal punishment in education. Locke's work was highly influential, and may have helped influence Polish legislators to ban corporal punishment from Poland's schools in 1783, the first country in the world to do so.<ref>Newell, Peter (ed.). A Last Resort? Corporal Punishment in Schools, Penguin, London, 1972, p. 9 Template:ISBN</ref>

File:Women's prison punishment (early modern era).jpg
Corporal punishment in a women's prison in the United States (ca. 1890)
File:Husaga (teckning av Fritz von Dardel).jpg
Husaga (the right of the master of the household to corporally punish his servants) was outlawed in Sweden for adults in 1858.

A consequence of this mode of thinking was a reduction in the use of corporal punishment in the 19th century in Europe and North America. In some countries this was encouraged by scandals involving individuals seriously hurt during acts of corporal punishment. For instance, in Britain, popular opposition to punishment was encouraged by two significant cases, the death of Private Frederick John White, who died after a military flogging in 1846,<ref>Barretts, C.R.B. The History of The 7th Queen's Own Hussars Vol. II Template:Webarchive.</ref> and the death of Reginald Cancellor, killed by his schoolmaster in 1860.<ref>Middleton, Jacob (2005). "Thomas Hopley and mid-Victorian attitudes to corporal punishment". History of Education.</ref> Events such as these mobilised public opinion and, by the late nineteenth century, the extent of corporal punishment's use in state schools was unpopular with many parents in England.<ref name="historytoday">Middleton, Jacob (November 2012). "Spare the Rod". History Today (London).</ref> Authorities in Britain and some other countries introduced more detailed rules for the infliction of corporal punishment in government institutions such as schools, prisons and reformatories. By the First World War, parents' complaints about disciplinary excesses in England had died down, and corporal punishment was established as an expected form of school discipline.<ref name="historytoday"/>

In the 1870s, courts in the United States overruled the common-law principle that a husband had the right to "physically chastise an errant wife".<ref>Calvert, R. "Criminal and civil liability in husband-wife assaults", in Violence in the family (Suzanne K. Steinmetz and Murray A. Straus, eds.), Harper & Row, New York, 1974. Template:ISBN</ref> In the UK, the traditional right of a husband to inflict moderate corporal punishment on his wife in order to keep her "within the bounds of duty" was similarly removed in 1891.<ref>R. v Jackson Template:Webarchive, [1891] 1 QB 671, abstracted at LawTeacher.net.</ref><ref>Template:Cite EB1911</ref> See Domestic violence for more information.

In the United Kingdom, the use of judicial corporal punishment declined during the first half of the twentieth century and it was abolished altogether in the Criminal Justice Act, 1948 (zi & z2 GEo. 6. CH. 58.), whereby whipping and flogging were outlawed except for use in very serious internal prison discipline cases,<ref>Criminal Justice Act, 1948 zi & z2 GEo. 6. CH. 58., pp. 54–55.</ref> while most other European countries had abolished it earlier. Meanwhile, in many schools, the use of the cane, paddle or tawse remained commonplace in the UK and the United States until the 1980s. In rural areas of the Southern United States, and in several other countries, it still is: see School corporal punishment.

International treatiesEdit

Human rightsEdit

Key developments related to corporal punishment occurred in the late 20th century. Years with particular significance to the prohibition of corporal punishment are emphasised.

Children's rightsEdit

Template:Youth rights sidebar The notion of children's rights in the Western world developed in the 20th century, but the issue of corporal punishment was not addressed generally before mid-century. Years with particular significance to the prohibition of corporal punishment of children are emphasised.

  • 1923: Children's Rights Proclamation by Save the Children founder. (5 articles).
    • 1924 Adopted as the World Child Welfare Charter, League of Nations (non-enforceable).
  • 1959: Declaration of the Rights of the Child, (UN) (10 articles; non-binding).
  • 1989: Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN (54 articles; binding treaty), with currently 193 parties and 140 signatories.<ref>UN (2012). 11. Convention on the Rights of the Child Template:Webarchive. United Nations Treaty Collection. Retrieved 1 May 2012.</ref> Article 19.1: "States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation . . . ."
    • 2006: Committee on the Rights of the Child, overseeing its implementation, comments: there is an "obligation of all States Party to move quickly to prohibit and eliminate all corporal punishment."<ref>UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2006) "General Comment No. 8:" par. 3. However, Article 19 of the Convention makes no reference to corporal punishment, and the Committee's interpretation on this point has been explicitly rejected by several States Party to the Convention, including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.</ref>
    • 2011: Optional Protocol on a Communications Procedure allowing individual children to submit complaints regarding specific violations of their rights.<ref>UN OHCHR (2012). Committee on the Rights of the Child. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 1 May 2012.</ref>
  • 2006: Study on Violence against Children presented by Independent Expert for the Secretary-General to the UN General Assembly.<ref>UN (2006) "Study on Violence against Children presented by Independent Expert for the Secretary-General". United Nations, A/61/299. See further: UN (2012e). Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 1 May 2012.</ref>
  • 2007: Post of Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children established.<ref>UN (2007) United Nations General Assembly, A/RES/62/141. The United States was the only country to vote against. There were no abstentions.</ref>

Modern useEdit

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Legal statusEdit

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67 countries, most of them in Europe and Latin America, have prohibited any corporal punishment of children.

The earliest recorded attempt to prohibit corporal punishment of children by a state dates back to Poland in 1783.<ref name="Abolishing">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp However, its prohibition in all spheres of life – in homes, schools, the penal system and alternative care settings – occurred first in 1966 in Sweden. The 1979 Swedish Parental Code reads: "Children are entitled to care, security and a good upbringing. Children are to be treated with respect for their person and individuality and may not be subjected to corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment."<ref name="Abolishing"/>Template:Rp

Template:As of, corporal punishment of children by parents (or other adults) is outlawed altogether in 63 nations (including the partially recognized Republic of Kosovo) and 3 constituent nations.<ref name="Countries Prohib">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Countries that have completely prohibited corporal punishment of children:<ref name="Countries Prohib"/>
Country Year
{{#invoke:flag Sweden}} 1979
{{#invoke:flag Finland}} 1983
{{#invoke:flag Norway}} 1987
{{#invoke:flag Austria}} 1989
{{#invoke:flag Cyprus}} 1994
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For a more detailed overview of the global use and prohibition of the corporal punishment of children, see the following table.

Summary of the number of countries prohibiting corporal punishment of children<ref name="Countries Prohib"/>
Home Schools Penal system Alternative care settings
As sentence for crime As disciplinary measure
Prohibited 67 130 156 117 39
Not prohibited 131 68 41 77 159
Legality unknown 1 4

Corporal punishment in the homeEdit

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File:Ending physical punishment in Wales - English version.webm
An overview of the Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment Act 2020, which ends the physical punishment of children everywhere in Wales, including the home

Domestic corporal punishment (i.e. the punishment of children by their parents) is often referred to colloquially as "spanking", "smacking", or "slapping".

It has been outlawed in an increasing number of countries, starting with Sweden in 1979.<ref name="Durrant 1996">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Countries Prohib" /> In some other countries, corporal punishment is legal, but restricted (e.g. blows to the head are outlawed, implements may not be used, only children within a certain age range may be spanked).

In all states of the United States and most African and Asian nations, corporal punishment by parents is legal. It is also legal to use certain implements (e.g. a belt or a paddle).

In Canada, spanking by parents or legal guardians (but nobody else) is legal, with certain restrictions: the child must be between the ages of 2–12, and no implement other than an open, bare hand may be used (belts, paddles, etc. are prohibited). It is also illegal to strike the head when disciplining a child.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In the UK (except Scotland and Wales), spanking or smacking is legal, but it must not cause an injury amounting to actual bodily harm (any injury such as visible bruising, breaking of the whole skin, etc.). In addition, in Scotland, since October 2003, it has been illegal to use any implements or to strike the head when disciplining a child, and it is also prohibited to use corporal punishment towards children under the age of 3 years. In 2019, Scotland enacted a ban on corporal punishment, which went into effect in 2020. Wales also enacted a ban in 2020, which has gone into effect in 2022.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In Pakistan, Section 89 of Pakistan Penal Code allows corporal punishment.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2024, children's doctors urged ministers to ban smacking children in England and Northern Ireland as their report warned that children suffer physically and mentally after being hit in their home. However, the UK government stated there were no plans to change the law on smacking in England and said it would observe the impact of legal amendments in Scotland and Wales.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Corporal punishment in schoolsEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Corporal punishment in schools has been outlawed in many countries. It often involves striking the student on the buttocks or the palm of the hand with an implement (e.g. a rattan cane or a spanking paddle).

In countries where corporal punishment is still allowed in schools, there may be restrictions; for example, school caning in Singapore and Malaysia is, in theory, permitted for boys only.

In India and many other countries, corporal punishment has technically been abolished by law. However, corporal punishment continues to be practised on boys and girls in many schools around the world. Cultural perceptions of corporal punishment have rarely been studied and researched. One study carried out discusses how corporal punishment is perceived among parents and students in India.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Medical professionals have urged putting an end to the practice, noting the danger of injury to children's hands especially.<ref>"Corporal Punishment to Children's Hands", A Statement by Medical Authorities as to the Risks, January 2002.</ref>

Judicial or quasi-judicial punishmentEdit

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File:Taliban beating woman in public RAWA.jpg
A member of the Taliban's religious police beating an Afghan woman in Kabul on 26 August 2001

Around 33 countries in the world still retain judicial corporal punishment, including a number of former British territories such as Botswana, Malaysia, Singapore and Tanzania. In Singapore, for certain specified offences, males are routinely sentenced to caning in addition to a prison term. The Singaporean practice of caning became much discussed around the world in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay received four strokes of the cane for vandalism. Judicial caning and whipping are also used in Aceh Province in Indonesia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A number of other countries with an Islamic legal system, such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iran, Brunei, Sudan, and some northern states in Nigeria, employ judicial whipping for a range of offences. In April 2020, the Saudi Supreme Court ended the flogging punishment from its court system, and replaced it with jail time or fines.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Template:As of, some regions of Pakistan are experiencing a breakdown of law and government, leading to a reintroduction of corporal punishment by ad hoc Islamicist courts.<ref>Walsh, Declan. "Video of girl's flogging as Taliban hand out justice", The Guardian, London, 2 April 2009.</ref> As well as corporal punishment, some Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran use other kinds of physical penalties such as amputation or mutilation.<ref>Campaign against the Arms Trade, Evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, London, January 2005.</ref><ref>"Lashing Justice", Editorial, The New York Times, 3 December 2007.</ref><ref>"Saudi Arabia: Court Orders Eye to Be Gouged Out", Human Rights Watch, 8 December 2005.</ref> However, the term "corporal punishment" has since the 19th century usually meant caning, flagellation or bastinado rather than those other types of physical penalty.<ref>Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989, "corporal punishment: punishment inflicted on the body; originally including death, mutilation, branding, bodily confinement, irons, the pillory, etc. (as opposed to a fine or punishment in estate or rank). In 19th c. usually confined to flogging or similar infliction of bodily pain."</ref><ref>"Physical punishment such as caning or flogging" – Concise Oxford Dictionary.</ref><ref>"... inflicted on the body, esp. by beating." – Oxford American Dictionary of Current English.</ref><ref name="arnoldbaker">"mostly a euphemism for the enforcement of discipline by applying canes, whips or birches to the buttocks." – Charles Arnold-Baker, The Companion to British History, Routledge, 2001.</ref><ref>"Physical punishment such as beating or caning" – Chambers 21st Century Dictionary.</ref><ref>"Punishment of a physical nature, such as caning, flogging, or beating." – Collins English Dictionary.</ref><ref>"the striking of somebody's body as punishment" – Encarta World English Dictionary, MSN. Archived 31 October 2009.</ref>

In some countries, foot whipping (bastinado) is still practised on prisoners.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

EffectsEdit

According to a study headed by Harvard researchers, corporal punishment like spanking could affect the brain development of children. These effects are similar to the more severe form of violence.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Corporal punishment is associated with physical injury and abuse, it erodes parent-child relationships, reduces cognitive abilities and IQ scores, leads to mental health problems including depression and anxiety, and it increases adult aggression and anti-social behaviors.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

RitualsEdit

In parts of England, boys were once beaten under the old tradition of "Beating the Bounds" whereby a boy was paraded around the edge of a city or parish and spanked with a switch or cane to mark the boundary.<ref>"Mayor may axe child spanking rite", BBC News Online, 21 September 2004.</ref> One famous "Beating the Bounds" took place around the boundary of St Giles and the area where Tottenham Court Road now stands in central London. The actual stone that marked the boundary is now underneath the Centre Point office tower.<ref>Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography, Chatto & Windus, London, 2000. Template:ISBN</ref>

In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and some parts of Hungary, a tradition for health and fertility is carried out on Easter Monday. Boys and young men will spank or whip girls and young women on the bottom with braided willow branches. After the man sings the verse, the young woman turns around and the man takes a few whacks at her backside with the whip. <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In popular cultureEdit

File:Piero - The Flagellation.jpg
The Flagellation, by Piero della Francesca

Art

Film and TV

See: List of films and TV containing corporal punishment scenes.

See alsoEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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Further readingEdit

  • Barathan, Gopal; The Caning of Michael Fay, (1995). A contemporary account of an American teenager ( Michael P. Fay ) caned for vandalism in Singapore.
  • Gates, Jay Paul and Marafioti, Nicole; (eds.), Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, (2014). Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
  • Moskos, Peter; In Defence of Flogging, (2011). An argument that flogging might be better than jail time.
  • Scott, George; A History of Corporal Punishment, (1996).

External linksEdit

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