Editing Flagellation (section)

==Historical use as punishment ==

===Judaism===
According to the [[Torah]] (Deuteronomy 25:1–3) and [[Rabbinic law]] lashes may be given for offenses that do not merit capital punishment, and may not exceed 40. However, in the absence of a [[Sanhedrin]], corporal punishment is not practiced in Jewish law. [[Halakha]] specifies the lashes must be given in sets of three, so the total number cannot exceed 39. Also, the person whipped is first judged whether they can withstand the punishment, if not, the number of whips is decreased. [[Halakha|Jewish law]] limited flagellation to forty strokes, and in practice delivered thirty-nine, so as to avoid any possibility of breaking this law due to a miscount.

===Antiquity===
[[File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880).jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.7|Painting of the flagellation of [[Jesus]] which illustrates the pain the punishment causes. ]]
In the [[Roman Empire]], flagellation was often used as a prelude to [[crucifixion]], and in this context is sometimes referred to as ''[[Scourge|scourging]]''. Most famously according to the gospel accounts, [[Flagellation of Christ|this occurred]] prior to the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|crucifixion of Jesus Christ]]. Due to the context of the flagellation of Jesus, the method and extent may have been limited by local practice, though it was done under Roman law.

Whips with small pieces of metal or bone at the tips were commonly used. Such a device could easily cause disfigurement and serious trauma, such as ripping pieces of flesh from the body or loss of an eye. In addition to causing severe pain, the victim would approach a state of [[Hypovolemia|hypovolemic shock]] due to loss of blood.

The Romans reserved this treatment for non-citizens, as stated in the {{Lang|la|lex Porcia}} and {{Lang|la|lex Sempronia}}, dating from 195 and 123 BC. The poet [[Horace]] refers to the {{Lang|la|horribile flagellum}} (horrible whip) in his ''Satires''. Typically, the one to be punished was stripped naked and bound to a low pillar so that he could bend over it, or chained to an upright pillar so as to be stretched out. Two [[lictor]]s (some reports indicate scourgings with four or six lictors) alternated blows from the bare shoulders down the body to the soles of the feet. There was no limit to the number of blows inflicted—this was left to the lictors to decide, though they were normally not supposed to kill the victim. Nonetheless, [[Livy]], [[Suetonius]] and [[Josephus]] report cases of flagellation where victims died while still bound to the post. Flagellation was referred to as "half death" by some authors, as many victims died shortly thereafter. [[Cicero]] reports in {{Lang|la|In Verrem}}, "''{{lang|la|pro mortuo sublatus brevi postea mortuus}}''" ("taken away for a dead man, shortly thereafter he was dead").

===From Middle Ages to modern times===
[[File:Supplice du Grand Knout.jpg|thumb|Punishment with a [[knout]] (Russia, 18th century)]]
The Whipping Act was passed in [[England]] in 1530. Under this legislation, [[vagrancy (people)|vagrant]]s were to be taken to a nearby populated area "and there tied to the end of a cart naked and beaten with whips throughout such market town till the body shall be bloody".<ref>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Whipping|volume=28|pages=590–591}}</ref>

In England, offenders (mostly those convicted of theft) were usually sentenced to be flogged "at a cart's tail" along a length of public street, usually near the scene of the crime, "until his [or her] back be bloody". In the late seventeenth century, however, the courts occasionally ordered that the flogging should be carried out in prison or a [[house of correction]] rather than on the streets. From the 1720s courts began explicitly to differentiate between private whipping and public whipping. Over the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the proportion of whippings carried out in public declined, but the number of private whippings increased. The public whipping of women was abolished in 1817 (after having been in decline since the 1770s) and that of men ended in the early 1830s, though not formally abolished until 1862.

Private whipping of men in prison continued and was not abolished until 1948.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp |title=Crime and Justice – Punishment Sentences at the Old Bailey – Central Criminal Court|website=www.oldbaileyonline.org |accessdate=3 September 2023|archive-date=12 December 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181212065840/https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp |url-status=live}}</ref> The 1948 abolition did not affect the ability of a prison's visiting{{clarify|date=March 2023|reason=who comes to visit?}} justices (in England and Wales, but not in Scotland, except at Peterhead) to order the birch or cat for prisoners committing serious assaults on prison staff. This power was not abolished until 1967, having been last used in 1962.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.corpun.com/counukj.htm |title=Judicial and Prison Flogging and Whipping in Britain |website=www.corpun.com|access-date=5 January 2018|archive-date=10 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180410145312/http://corpun.com/counukj.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> [[School corporal punishment#United Kingdom|School whipping]] was outlawed in publicly funded schools in 1986, and in privately funded schools in 1998 to 2003.<ref name=CountryUK>{{cite web |url= http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/progress/country-reports/uk.html |title=Country report for UK |date=June 2015 |publisher=Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children}}</ref>

Whipping occurred during the French Revolution, though not as official punishment. On 31 May 1793, the Jacobin women seized a revolutionary leader, [[Anne Josephe Theroigne de Mericourt]], stripped her naked, and flogged her on the bare bottom in the public garden of the [[Tuileries]]. After this humiliation, she refused to wear any clothes, in memory of the outrage she had suffered.<ref>Roudinesco, Elisabeth (1992). ''Madness and Revolution: The Lives and Legends of Theroigne de Mericourt'', Verso. {{ISBN|0-86091-597-2}}. p. 198</ref> She went mad and ended her days in an asylum after the public whipping.

In the [[Russian Empire]], [[knout]]s were used to flog criminals and political offenders. Sentences of a hundred lashes would usually result in death. Whipping was used as a punishment for [[Serfdom in Russia|Russian serfs]].<ref>Chapman, Tim (2001). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=EJCOl7S0UYgC&pg=PA83 Imperial Russia, 1801–1905] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230321214007/https://books.google.com/books?id=EJCOl7S0UYgC&pg=PA83 |date=21 March 2023 }}''. Routledge. p. 83. {{ISBN|0-415-23110-8}}</ref>

[[Ashraf Fayadh]] (born 1980), a Saudi Arabian poet, was imprisoned for eight years and lashed 800 times, rather than receiving a death penalty,<!--reduction from death penalty--> for [[apostasy]] in 2016. In April 2020, [[Saudi Arabia]] said it would replace flogging with prison sentences or fines, according to a government document.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-rights-flogging/saudi-arabia-to-end-flogging-as-form-of-punishment-document-idUSKCN2262VT?il=0 |title=Saudi Arabia to end flogging as form of punishment: document|website=Reuters|date=24 April 2020|access-date=25 April 2020|archive-date=25 April 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200425015144/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-rights-flogging/saudi-arabia-to-end-flogging-as-form-of-punishment-document-idUSKCN2262VT?il=0 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Use against slaves===
{{Expand section|date=January 2024}}
[[File:Johann Moritz Rugendas in Brazil 2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Public flogging of a slave in [[Brazil]] – work of German painter [[Johann Moritz Rugendas]] (1802–1858)]]

[[File:Scourged back by McPherson & Oliver, 1863, retouched.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|An African-American slave named [[Gordon (slave)|Gordon]], photo taken at [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]], 1863; the scars are clearly visible because of [[keloid]] formation]]

Whipping has been used as a form of discipline on slaves.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The horrors of slavery, 1805 {{!}} Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/horrors-slavery-1805 |access-date=13 December 2024 |website=www.gilderlehrman.org}}</ref> It was routinely carried out during the period of [[slavery in the United States]], by slave owners and their slaves. The power was also given to slave "patrolers," an early form of police forces who were authorized to whip any slave who violated the [[slave codes]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Slave Patrol Contract, 1856 {{!}} Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/slave-patrol-contract-1856 |access-date=13 December 2024 |website=www.gilderlehrman.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Southern Slave Patrols as a Transitional Police Type {{!}} Office of Justice Programs |url=https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/southern-slave-patrols-transitional-police-type |access-date=13 December 2024 |website=www.ojp.gov}}</ref> Historians have shown that [[George Washington|President George Washington]] approved of the whipping of enslaved people.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Resistance and Punishment {{!}} George Washington's Mount Vernon |url= https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/resistance-and-punishment |access-date=13 December 2024 |website=www.mountvernon.org}}</ref> According to historian Michael Dickman, "[Slave-owners] used the whip as a tool to enforce this vision of society. Slaves, on the other hand, through their victimization and punishment, viewed the whip as the physical manifestation of their oppression under slavery." In 1863, a photo known as "Whipped Peter" circulated widely. The photo depicts an enslaved man who bears welts across his back from being whipped. The image sparked outcry against the brutality of slavery, and contributed to anti-slavery sentiment during the Civil War.<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 August 2023 |title=The Shocking Photo of 'Whipped Peter' That Made Slavery's Brutality Impossible to Deny |url=https://www.history.com/news/whipped-peter-slavery-photo-scourged-back-real-story-civil-war |access-date=13 December 2024 |website= history.com}}</ref>

===Flogging as military punishment===
In the 18th and 19th centuries, European armies administered floggings to common soldiers who committed breaches of the military code.

====United States====
During the [[American Revolutionary War]], the American Congress raised the legal limit on lashes from 39 to 100 for soldiers who were convicted by courts-martial.<ref>Martin, p. 76.</ref>

Prior to 1815 United States Navy captains were given wide discretion in matters of discipline. Surviving ships logs reveal the majority awarded between twelve and twenty-four lashes, depending on the severity of the offense. However, a few such as captain [[Isaac Chauncey]] awarded one hundred or more lashes.<ref>McKee, Christopher, ''A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession The Creation of the U.S.Naval Officer Corps, 1794–1815'', (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md.,1991), p. 243</ref> In 1815 the United States Navy placed a limit of twelve lashes, a captain of a naval vessel, could award. More severe infractions were to be tried by court martial.<ref>McKee, p. 235</ref> As critics of flogging aboard the ships and vessels of the United States Navy became more vocal, the Department of the Navy began in 1846 to require annual reports of discipline including flogging, and limited the maximum number of lashes to 12. These annual reports were required from the captain of each naval vessel. See thumbnail for the 1847 disciplinary report of the {{USS|John Adams|1799|6}}. The individual reports were then compiled so the Secretary of the Navy could report to the United States Congress how pervasive flogging had become and to what extent it was utilized.<ref>Sharp, John G.M., ''Flogging at Sea, Discipline and Punishment in the Old Navy'' http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/oldnavydiscipline.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230723170301/http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/oldnavydiscipline.html |date=23 July 2023 }}</ref> In total for the years 1846–1847, flogging had been administered a reported 5,036 times on sixty naval vessels.<ref>Parker, Hershel, ''Herman Melville A Biography Volume 1'', 1819–1851 (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996) p. 262</ref> 

At the urging of [[New Hampshire]] Senator [[John P. Hale]], the United States Congress banned flogging on all U.S. ships in September 1850, as part of a then-controversial amendment to a naval appropriations bill.<ref name=Congress>Hodak, George. [http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/congress_bans_maritime_flogging/ "Congress Bans Maritime Flogging"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220222071459/http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/congress_bans_maritime_flogging/ |date=22 February 2022 }}. ''ABA Journal''. September 1850, p. 72. Retrieved 18 October 2010.</ref><ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20151011114623/http://legisworks.org/congress/31/session-1/chap-80.pdf 31st Congress, Session 1, Chapter 80 (1850), p. 515.]}} Quote: ''"''Provided'', That flogging in the navy, and on board vessels of commerce, be, and the same is hereby, abolished from and after the passage of this act."''</ref> Hale was inspired by [[Herman Melville]]'s "vivid description of flogging, a brutal staple of 19th century naval discipline" in Melville's "novelized memoir" ''[[White Jacket]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/usunitedstates-hmelville|title=Sharp, John G.M. ''The Ship Log of the frigate USS United States 1843–1844 and Herman Melville Ordinary Seaman'' 2019, pp. 3–4 accessed 12 December 2020|website=www.usgwarchives.net|access-date=12 December 2020|archive-date=12 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190512170344/http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/usunitedstates-hmelville|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Congress /> During Melville's time on the USS United States from 1843 to 1844, the ship log records 163 floggings, including some on his first and second days (18 and 19 August 1843) aboard the frigate at Honolulu, Oahu.<ref>Anderson, Charles Roberts, editor, Journal of A Cruise to the Pacific Ocean, 1842–1844, in the Frigate United States With Notes on Herman Melville (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1937), p. 8.</ref> Melville also included an intense depiction of flogging, and the circumstances surrounding it, in his more famous work, ''[[Moby-Dick]]''.[[File:1847 disciplinary report re flogging, on the USS John Adams.jpg|thumb|1847 disciplinary report re flogging, on the USS ''John Adams''. The United States Congress banned flogging on all U.S. ships on 28 September 1850]]

Military flogging was abolished in the United States Army on 5 August 1861.<ref>{{Cite book|title=History of the United States Army|last=Weigley|first=Russell|year=1984|publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0253203236|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds00weig}}</ref>

==== United Kingdom ====
Flagellation was so common in England as punishment that [[caning]] (and [[spanking]] and whipping) are called "the English vice".<ref name="MurrayMurrell1989">{{cite book|author1=Thomas Edward Murray|author2=Thomas R. Murrell|title=The Language of Sadomasochism: A Glossary and Linguistic Analysis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tL81ZduPn_UC&pg=PA23|year=1989|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-26481-8|pages=23–|access-date=30 December 2019|archive-date=25 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240125105529/https://books.google.com/books?id=tL81ZduPn_UC&pg=PA23|url-status=live}}</ref>

Flogging was a common disciplinary measure in the [[Royal Navy]] that became associated with a seaman's manly disregard for pain.<ref>"[http://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/facts/ships-and-seafarers/life-at-sea-in-the-age-of-sail Life at sea in the age of sail] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227093114/https://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/facts/ships-and-seafarers/life-at-sea-in-the-age-of-sail |date=27 February 2023 }}". National Maritime Museum.</ref> Generally, officers were not flogged. However, in 1745, a [[cashiering|cashiered]] British officer's sword could be broken over his head, among other indignities inflicted on him.<ref>Tomasson, p. 127.</ref> Aboard ships, [[knittles]] or the [[cat o' nine tails]] was used for severe formal punishment, while a "rope's end" or "starter" was used to administer informal, on-the-spot discipline. During the period 1790–1820, flogging in the British Navy on average consisted of 19.5 lashes per man.<ref>Underwood, Patrick, et al. "Threat, Deterrence, and Penal Severity: An Analysis of Flogging in the Royal Navy, 1740–1820." Social Science History, vol. 42, no. 3, 2018, pp. 411–439, {{JSTOR|90024188}}, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231227223052/https://www.jstor.org/stable/90024188 |date=27 December 2023 }} Accessed 27 December 2023</ref> Some captains such as [[Thomas Masterman Hardy]] imposed even more severe penalties.<ref>Knight, Rodger, ''The Pursuit of Victory The Life and Achievements of Horatio Nelson''(Basic Books,  New York, 2005), pp. 475–476</ref> Hardy while commanding {{HMS|Victory}}, 1803–1805, raised punishments from the prior twelve lashes and twenty-four for more serious offenses to a new standard of thirty-six lashes with sixty lashes reserved for more serious infractions, such as theft or second offenses.<ref>Sharp, John G.M., ''Americans on HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar 21 October 1805'', http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/trafalgar.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231221211019/http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/trafalgar.html |date=21 December 2023 }}</ref>

In severe cases a person could be "flogged around the fleet": a significant number of lashes (up to 600) was divided among the ships on a station and the person was taken to all ships to be flogged on each, or—when in harbour—bound in a ship's boat which was then rowed among the ships, with the ships' companies called to attention to observe the punishment.<ref>Keith Grint, The Arts of Leadership, 2000, {{ISBN|0191589330}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=rJ6yjNy___AC&pg=PA238, pp. 237–238]</ref>[[File:HMS VICTORY LOG, OCT 19, 1805,36 lashes each.jpg|thumb|HMS ''VICTORY'' LOG, 19 October 1805, 36 lashes each]]

In June 1879 a motion to abolish flogging in the Royal Navy was debated in the House of Commons. [[John O'Connor Power]], the member for Mayo, asked the [[First Lord of the Admiralty]] to bring the navy cat o' nine tails to the [[House of Commons Library|Commons Library]] so that the members might see what they were voting about. It was the Great "Cat" Contention, "Mr Speaker, since the Government has let the cat out of the bag, there is nothing to be done but to take the bull by the horns." [[Poet Laureate]] [[Ted Hughes]] celebrates the occasion in his poem, "Wilfred Owen's Photographs": "A witty profound Irishman calls/For a 'cat' into the House, and sits to watch/The gentry fingering its stained tails./Whereupon ...Quietly, unopposed,/The motion was passed."<ref>Hughes, Ted, "Wilfred Owen's Photographs", ''Lupercal'', 1960. See also Stanford, Jane, ''That Irishman: the Life and Times of John O'Connor Power'', 2011, pp. 79–80.</ref>

[[File:A youthful man-o'-warsman, from the diary of an English lad who served in the British frigate Macedonian during her memorable action with the American frigate United States; who afterward deserted and (14594689439).jpg|thumb|British sailor, tied to the grating, being flogged with [[cat o' nine tails]]]]
In the [[Napoleonic Wars]], the maximum number of lashes that could be inflicted on soldiers in the British Army reached 1,200. This many lashes could permanently disable or kill a man. [[Charles Oman]], historian of the [[Peninsular War]], noted that the maximum sentence was inflicted "nine or ten times by general court-martial during the whole six years of the war" and that 1,000 lashes were administered about 50 times.<ref>Oman, p. 239.</ref> Other sentences were for 900, 700, 500 and 300 lashes. One soldier was sentenced to 700 lashes for stealing a beehive.<ref>Oman, p. 246.</ref> Another man was let off after only 175 of 400 lashes, but spent three weeks in the hospital.<ref>Oman, p. 254.</ref> Later in the war, the more draconian punishments were abandoned and the offenders shipped to New South Wales instead, where more whippings often awaited them. (See [[#Australian penal colonies|Australian penal colonies]] section.) Oman later wrote: {{blockquote|If anything was calculated to brutalize an army it was the wicked cruelty of the British military punishment code, which [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Wellington]] to the end of his life supported. There is plenty of authority for the fact that the man who had once received his 500 lashes for a fault which was small, or which involved no moral guilt, was often turned thereby from a good soldier into a bad soldier, by losing his self-respect and having his sense of justice seared out. Good officers knew this well enough, and did their best to avoid the cat o' nine tails, and to try more rational means{{mdash}}more often than not with success.<ref>Oman, p. 43.</ref>}}

The 3rd battalion's [[Royal Anglian Regiment]] nickname of "The Steelbacks" is taken from one of its former regiments, the [[48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment of Foot]] who earned the nickname for their stoicism when being flogged with the cat o' nine tails ("Not a whimper under the lash"), a routine method of administering punishment in the Army in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Shortly after the establishment of [[Northern Ireland]] the [[Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922|Special Powers Act of 1922]] (known as the "Flogging Act") was enacted by the [[Parliament of Northern Ireland]]. The Act enabled the government to 'take all such steps and issue all such orders as may be necessary for preserving the peace and maintaining order'.<ref>McCluskey, Fergal, (2013), ''The Irish Revolution 1912–23: Tyrone'', Four Courts Press, Dublin, p. 127, ISBN 9781846822995</ref> This included flogging for firearms offenses and allowed authorities to prohibit inquests, impose curfews and ban organizations and newspapers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Farrell |first=Michael |author-link= |date=1983 |title=Arming the Protestants: The Formation of the Ulster Special Constabulary, 1920-27 |url= |location=London |publisher=Pluto Press Ltd |page=99 |isbn=0861047052}}</ref> The long serving [[Minister of Home Affairs (Northern Ireland)|Home Affairs Minister]] [[Dawson Bates]] (1921–1943) was empowered to make any regulation felt necessary to preserve law and order. Breaking those regulations could bring a sentenced of up to a year in prison with hard labour, and included whipping.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/hmso/spa1922.htm |title=Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland), 1922 |last=McKenna |first=Fionnuala |date= |website=CAIN |publisher= |access-date=31 July 2022 |quote= |archive-date=31 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220731124220/https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/hmso/spa1922.htm |url-status=live }} Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Act.</ref> This act was in place until 1973, when it was replaced with the [[Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973]]. An imprisoned member of the [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)]], Frank Morris remembered his 15 "strokes of the cat" in 1942: "The pain was dreadful; you couldn't imagine it. The tail-ends cut my flesh to the bone, but I was determined not to scream and I didn't."<ref>{{cite book |last=Thorne |first=Kathleen |author-link= |date=2019 |title=Echoes of Their Footsteps Volume Three |url= |location=Oregon |publisher=Generation Organization |page=584 |isbn=978-0-692-04283-0}}</ref>  

The [[King's German Legion]] (KGL), which were German units in British pay, did not flog. In one case, a British soldier on detached duty with the KGL was sentenced to be flogged, but the German commander refused to carry out the punishment. When the British 73rd Foot flogged a man in occupied France in 1814, disgusted French citizens protested against it.<ref name="Rothenberg, p.179">Rothenberg, p. 179.</ref>

====France====
During the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] the French Army stopped floggings altogether,<ref name="Rothenberg, p.179"/> inflicting death penalty or other severe corporal punishments instead.<ref>"... the infliction of corporal pain, without a Court-martial, and at the arbitrary will of the officers, did take place to a very great extent in the armies of Napoleon; in which, moreover, shooting was common to a degree that, he was persuaded, would astonish many hon. Gentlemen." [[Viscount Palmerston]] [https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1833/apr/02/military-flogging#S3V0017P0_18330402_HOC_68 on Military flogging, Commons sitting, 02 April 1833] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116105326/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1833/apr/02/military-flogging#S3V0017P0_18330402_HOC_68 |date=16 January 2024 }}</ref>

=== Australian penal colonies ===
[[File:FremantletPrisonWhippingPost 2005 SeanMcClean.jpg|thumb|[[Fremantle Prison]] whipping post]]
{{See also|History of Australia}}

Once common in the [[British Army]] and British [[Royal Navy]] as a means of discipline, flagellation also featured prominently in the British [[penal colony|penal colonies]] in [[early colonial Australia]]. Given that convicts in Australia were already "imprisoned", punishments for offenses committed there could not usually result in imprisonment and thus usually consisted of corporal punishment such as [[hard labour]] or flagellation. Unlike Roman times, British law explicitly forbade the combination of corporal and [[capital punishment]]; thus, a convict was either flogged or hanged but never both.

Flagellation took place either with a single whip or, more notoriously, with the [[cat o' nine tails]]. Typically, the offender's upper half was bared and he was suspended by the wrists beneath a tripod of wooden beams (known as 'the triangle'). In many cases, the offender's feet barely touched ground, which helped to stretch the skin taut and increase the damage inflicted by the whip. It also centered the offender's weight in his shoulders, further ensuring a painful experience.

With the prisoner thus stripped and bound, either one or two floggers administered the prescribed number of strokes, or "lashes," to the victim's back. During the flogging, a doctor or other medical worker was consulted at regular intervals as to the condition of the prisoner. In many cases, however, the physician merely observed the offender to determine whether he was conscious. If the prisoner passed out, the physician would order a halt until the prisoner was revived, and then the whipping would continue.

Female convicts were also subject to flogging as punishment, both on the convict ships and in the penal colonies. Although they were generally given fewer lashes than males (usually limited to 40 in each flogging), there was no other difference between the manner in which males and females were flogged.

Floggings of both male and female convicts were public, administered before the whole colony's company, assembled especially for the purpose. In addition to the infliction of pain, one of the principal purposes of the flogging was to humiliate the offender in front of his mates and to demonstrate, in a forceful way, that he had been required to submit to authority.

At the conclusion of the whipping, the prisoner's lacerated back was normally rinsed with [[brine]], which served as a crude and painful disinfectant.

Flogging still continued for years after independence. The last person flogged in Australia was [[William John O'Meally]] in 1958 in [[Melbourne]]'s [[HM Prison Pentridge|Pentridge Prison]].