Arguments against corporal punishment

(a) In the last 30 years, three separate and independent committees of high standing in England and Canada have reported against corporal punishment. One of these the Cadogan Committee—analysed the after-prison records of 440 men convicted of robbery with violence. Of these men. 142 had been flogged, and more than half of those (55 per cent.) went out to commit further serious crimes including robbery with violence.

(b) Each committee concluded that corporal punishment acts neither as a deterrent to those flogged nor to others.

(c) In 1948, Norval Morris a criminologist of world standing and at present Professor of Law and Criminology at Chicago University, studied the histories of 270 hardened criminals in England. Eleven had received corporal punishment, of whom nine subsequently committed crimes of violence and the remaining two committed other crimes.

(d) Men who had been flogged told a sociologist in Wormwood Scrubs (an English prison) that they would prefer corporal punishment to a long prison sentence because flogging is over quickly. They also said that violence carried out by the State would make violence in general more acceptable and more likely.

(e) Even if we accept that corporal punishment in the home or school is justified it is fallacious to compare such discipline with cold, delayed, judicial punishment.

(f) The "cat" or the birch is nothing more than a vestigal form of torture.