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Corporal Punishment

  
 
SMS
20:19 / 17.07.02
Corporal Punishment.

We generally accept corporal punishment in the U.S. (and U.K) as “cruel and unusual,” and it is difficult to find anyone who supports it. Somehow, the prospect of a policy that advocates hitting our criminals with reeds frightens us more than a policy that puts our criminals in cages. Why is this? Is it possible to humanely incorporate corporal punishment into the criminal justice system?

If it is, then there are at least a few advantages to doing so. In prison, a criminal contributes very little to society, but is still a tremendous burden. The cost of punishing our criminals in this way could be used in other ways to prevent crime such as building schools or leaving the money in the economy to provide more jobs.

If I were to be put into prison, I would feel as though I were being told that I had nothing to contribute to the world. Yet, if I were give a brief but significant punishment, and then released, I would feel that I still had a responsibility to contribute. True, I had done something I shouldn’t have done, but that didn’t negate any future responsibilities.

We can resolve many of the disadvantages of using corporal punishment. For instance, it is possible that the person in charge of executing the punishment might be overzealous. If, on the other hand, a kind of machine were used, then there would be no need to worry about this. It is also possible that some people may not be healthy enough to be lashed, but for those the doctors deem unfit for such a punishment, it would be forbidden.

Are there studies that indicate the kind of effect this might have on people? How reliable are they?
 
 
Higher than the sun :)
23:46 / 17.07.02
Good topic SMS. Keeping criminals in jail doesn't work - it keeps them boxed up, bored and frustrated, but it doesn't really tackle the psychological problems in any effective way. A short, sharp shock is definitely what's needed. A quick jab with a cattle prod, or a 500 watt electrical charge to the brain - Pavlov dogs style, knowwhatimsaying?
 
 
Hieronymus
00:42 / 18.07.02
(hears crickets)





You're.... kidding right?
 
 
Gibreel
04:12 / 18.07.02
SMS> But the function of a prison system is more than punishment. Rehabilitation (which prisons are not particularly good at at the moment) and protecting the public (which they are slightly better at) are also supposed functions. How does corporal punishment support these objectives.

I also suspect that for serious crimes it will not be considered punishment enough by the families of murder victims for example. Society wants serious criminals to be punished for a long time.

And would your system go as far as amputations Arabia-style?

I don't think the machine vs. human punisher issue is a big deal.

"Yet, if I were give a brief but significant punishment, and then released, I would feel that I still had a responsibility to contribute"

Er, why? Society has just publically humiliated you. And suddenly you're a reformed citizen? I don't follow this.
 
 
Slim
04:16 / 18.07.02
The only way I corporal punishment would work would be to make it very violent. Amputation with a meat cleaver, for instance.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:17 / 18.07.02
...because the expense of retraining somebody to function with a missing limb, treating them medically, providing them with prosthesis and quite possibly supporting them through soxial services when they are unable to find work will be as nothing. And it certainly won't leave them in any way embittered or liable to hold a grudge against the society that just CUT OFF THEIR LIMB.
 
 
Loomis
11:00 / 18.07.02
[Haus] Well, corporal means pertaining to the body, so incarceration is corporal punishment ... [/Haus]

However there are numerous kinds of corporal punishment, and if you're looking for something which punishes and rehabilitates, then I guess you want something that punishes without an ingrained shame and humiliation that will breed resentment rather than rehabilitation. Something that retains dignity. And is there any such punishment? Maybe a shorter sentence of "hard labour" rather than a longer one of sitting in a box? However at the end of the day, they are all physical punishments, some of which will deter some folks, and some others. And the mental issue of rehabilitation will always need to be dealt with, and will simply need to be approached in a manner tailored to the particular style of physical punishment that has been administered. And which, unless things are drastically changed, will always be done poorly. I think if the rehabilitation side is improved, then which kind of punishment is chosen won't be such an issue.

However, there is a larger issue here as well, if it's not too threadrotty. The reviling of the concept of physical punishment without regard to mental punishment. For instance in schools, physical punishment is deemed terrible, but the kind of mental torture many kids receive at the hands of teachers is no picnic. To be shamed and treated as a criminal for breaking some school rule, and not being treated as a person in your other dealings with a teacher because of something you had done wrong in a separate incident.

At my school, a small number of teachers used "the strap", a long piece of sewed leather, a couple of huge WHACKS you would receive on your palm. And it fucking hurt. But it was short and sweet. One teacher by the name of Mr Hardman (I shit you not) was very handy (pun intended) with his strap, and I received it a handfull (pun not intended) of times. It hurt enough to be a deterrant, but if I was busted, then it was "fair cop guv", I got the punishment, didn't have to waste my time in detention, and there was no humiliation. I was not made to feel worthless and evil because I had broken a rule. He treated me with respect and didn't brand me as a criminal afterwards.

Not that I'm about to advocate bringing that kind of thing back, but from what I could see growing up, there were far worse mental punishments being doled out to kids who were not capable of dealing with it, and probably left long lasting effects of worthlessness. Anyone got any thoughts on this?
 
 
higuita
13:11 / 18.07.02
But, to be fair, it depends on the mindset of the person delivering the punishment. I can't imagine anything worse than a sadistic bastard who not only could rely on the usual classroom punishments, but also a strap, cane, slipper etc.

I will support flogging for drivers that cut me up, ignore box junctions or use their horns when the road is CLEARLY FUCKING BLOCKED, though.

I'm having trouble with the idea. Getting back to the point as a whole, I don't care that prisons cost money - a short, sharp shock is all very well, but a couple of millennia of rather extreme corporal punishments haven't exactly shown us that it provides much by way of rehab. It's a get-your-own-back, and that's it. What sort of crimes would you advocate the use of the birch for anyway?
I'm happier knowing that people who deliberately do rather nasty things are out of my way. Okay, prison as it stands doesn't work well. Jailing people for not paying tv licences is fucked - a more commensurate approach is needed towards sentencing so that prisons can be geared more towards locking up bastards and providing rehab where suitable.

But no to corporal punishment on the grounds that it's cheap and easy. That way lies membership of the local conservative club.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
16:59 / 19.07.02
And of course, there is often a system of unofficial corporal punishment that goes on in many jails that can leave people quadraspazzed on a life-glug...
 
  
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