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Corporal punishment is forced Pain intended to change a person's behaviour or to Punish them. Historically speaking, most Punishments , whether in judicial, domestic, or educational settings, were corporal in basis. History has many instances of corporal punishment. In modern world, corporal punishment has been largely rejected in favor of other disciplinary methods. Modern judiciaries often favor fines or , Bulgaria , Croatia , Cyprus , Denmark , Finland , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Iceland , Israel , Latvia , Norway , Romania , Sweden , the Netherlands , and Ukraine . Corporal Punishment in Canada is restricted to children under the age of 13, and only by parents or guardians, and only such punishment that does not leave marks. There has been much dispute in recent years over where the line should be drawn between corporal punishment and Torture , or whether a line should indeed be drawn at all. HISTORY OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT While the early history of corporal punishment is unclear, the practice was certainly present in classical civilizations, being used in Greece , Rome , Egypt and Israel , for both judicial and educational discipline. Practices varied greatly, though scourging and beating with sticks were common. Some states gained a reputation for using such punishments cruelly; Sparta , in particular, used frequent part of a disciplinary regime designed to build willpower and physical strength. Although the Spartan example was unusually extreme, corporal punishment was possibly the most common type of punishment. In Medieval Europe , corporal punishment was encouraged by the attitudes of the Medieval Church towards the human body, with Flagellation being a common means of self-discipline. In particular, this had a major 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 eleventh century Saint Anselm , Archbishop Of Canterbury was speaking out against what he saw as the cruel treatment of children.Wicksteed J. ''The Challenge of Childhood''. London: Chapman & Hall Ltd., 1936: 34-35 From the sixteenth century onwards, new trends were seen in corporal punishment. Judicial punishments were increasingly made into public spectacles, with the public beatings of criminals intended as a deterrent to other would-be miscreants. Meanwhile, early writers on education, such as , whose '' Some Thoughts Concerning Education '' explicitly criticized the central role of corporal punishment in education. Locke's work was highly influential, and in part influenced Polish legislators to ban corporal punishment from Poland 's schools in 1783.Newell P. ''A Last Resort? Corporal Punishment in Schools''. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972: 9 During the eighteenth century the frequent use of corporal punishment was heavily criticized, both by philosophers and legal reformers. Merely inflicting pain on miscreants was seen as inefficient, influencing the subject merely for a short period of time and effecting no permanent change in their behaviour. Critics believed that the purpose of punishment should be reformation, not retribution. This is perhaps best expressed in Jeremy Bentham's idea of a ''panoptic'' prison, in which prisoners were controlled and surveyed at all times, perceived to be advantageous in that this system reduced the need of measures such as corporal punishment. Bentham J. ''Chrestomathia''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983: 34, 106 A consequence of this mode of thinking was a diminution of corporal punishment throughout the nineteenth 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 1847, and the death of Reginald Cancellor, who was killed by his schoolmaster in 1860.Middleton J. Thomas Hopley and mid-Victorian attitudes to corporal punishment. ''History of Education'' 2005 Events such as these mobilized public opinion, and in response, many countries introduced thorough regulation of the infliction of corporal punishment in state institutions. The use of corporal punishment declined through the twentieth century, though the practice has proved most persistent as a punishment for violation of Prison rules, as a military field punishment, and in Schools . MODERN USAGE In the modern world, corporal punishment remains a common way of disciplining children however its use has declined significantly since the 1950s. It has been outlawed in many countries however some legal systems permit parents to use mild corporal punishment on their children. Many parents in the modern world do not however or use it rarely. Race and gender have a significant influence on corporal punishment in the western world. Black children and male children are much more likely to be hit at home and schoolDay, Randal., ''Predicting Spanking of Younger and Older Children by their Mothers and Fathers.'' Journal of Marriage and the Family 60 (February 1998): 79-94 and corporal punishment of boys tends to be more severe, more frequent and more aggressive than corporal punishment administered to girls Straus, 1994; Kipnis, 1999; Kindlon and Thompson, 1999; Newberger, 1999; Hyman, 1997. Ironically, while the research suggests that corporal punishment is potentially counterproductive for children, it is even more counterproductive for boys than girls. (Murray A. Straus and Julie H. Stewart. "Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review", Vol.2, No. 2, 1999) In terms of punishment in educational settings, approaches vary throughout the world. School corporal punishment is banned in most western nations and in industrialized nations outside the west. All of Western Europe, most of Eastern Europe, New Zealand, Japan and South Africa have banned school corporal punishment, as have many other countries. Corporal punishment is legal in some parts of Canada. In Australia, corporal punishment is banned in all state schools but continues in private schools in a couple of stateshttp://www.criminology.unimelb.edu.au/staff/alastair_nicholson/Hug_Not_Hit.pdf. In the United States, 23 states allow corporal punishment in schools. There is some disagreement about how much paddling occurs in US schools. Some estimates place the number of paddlings at approximately 350,000 a year, while the National Association of School Psychologists http://www.nasponline.org/about_nasp/pospaper_corppunish.aspx places the number at 1.5 million cases a year.Owen, S.S. (2005). ''The relationship between social capital and corporal punishment in schools: A theoretical inquiry''. Youth and Society, 37, 85-112. Evidence suggests that in the United States, racial and sexual discrimination play a large role in school corporal punishment, with black students being much more likely to be hit than white students, and male students being much more likely to be hit than female students, for the same infractions.Gregory, James F. ''Crime of punishment: Racial and gender disparities in the use of corporal punishment in U.S. public schools, The''. Journal of Negro Education. Fall 1995. Corporal punishment of male students also tends to be more severe and more aggressive Straus, 1994; Kipnis, 1999; Kindlon and Thompson, 1999; Newberger, 1999; Hyman, 1997. In some places, this sexual discrimination has the force of law. For instance, in Queensland, Australia, school corporal punishment of girls was banned in 1934 but corporal punishment of boys in private schools is still legal in 2007. Queensland Department of Education, http://education.qld.gov.au/information/service/libraries/edhistory/topics/corporal/regulations.html Some societies retain widespread use of judicial corporal punishment, including Malaysia and Singapore . In Singapore, male offenders are typically sentenced to caning in addition to a prison term. 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. When used in the home as a form of domestic punishment for children, smacking ( Spanking in American English) is most common form of corporal punishment. Although this form of punishment of children is either banned and/or declining in use in many countries. The legality of punishment |
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