AFGHANISTAN: Judicial and School CP

In its present wartorn state, Afghanistan is not under the rule of law.
Judicial CP was prevalent in the Taliban era, and it is not certain that it has stopped.
In schools, there is no information about formal CP but there are reports of general brutality.

For more details, see this separate page.

ANGUILLA: Judicial and School CP

Anguilla is one of the surviving British Overseas Territories. Formerly part of St Kitts, it became a separate jurisdiction in 1967.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

As at December 1998, according to this written answer in the UK House of Lords, there was no judicial corporal punishment and no prison CP. (There are no reformatories on the island.) The anti-CP campaign GITEACPOC, however, claims that JCP was not formally abolished until 2000, and that up till then males could be sentenced to it under the Corporal Punishment Ordinance 1967.

    The 1998 Lords answer said that CP was allowed in schools, and GITEACPOC says it still is. One school that is still saying that misbehaving students "will receive lashes" is Road Primary School.

AUSTRALIA: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

There is no JCP anywhere in Australia. It was outlawed for federal offences by the Crimes Act 1914, but this did not affect the local provisions in each individual State.

    Benson and Glover (1931) stated that JCP was available in all States both for adults and for juveniles, but not widely used in practice.

    The following information about the former position in each State is gleaned from Benson & Glover (1931), Benson (1937), Cadogan (1938) and Kalet Smith (1949).

    New South Wales had rules prescribing the use of a tawse for boys under 18, for a range of crimes (or for any indictable offence, in the case of a boy under 16), with a maximum of 25 strokes (or 50 strokes if over 16) at each of three whippings. These punishments were inflicted in a prison. The prison service supplied two implements, "Tawse No 1" for boys under 14, and a larger "Tawse No 2" for youths over 14 and under 18. It is not clear how the tawse was applied. Men over 18 convicted of various serious sexual crimes and some other offences (violent robbery, but also e.g. "malicious wounding of cattle") could be given up to 50 lashes of the cat-o'-nine-tails at each of three whippings. As at 1937, no adult JCP had been imposed since 1905, and no juvenile tawsings since 1932.

    In Queensland the implement could be a cane, birch, or leather strap, or (for offenders over 16) the cat, with the same maxima as for New South Wales. In 1937 it was claimed that no JCP had been ordered "in recent years".

    There was provision in South Australia for offenders under 16 to be birched with up to 25 strokes at each of two whippings for certain offences including minor larceny, indecent explosure, and "writing obscene words on walls". For boys under 14, for any offence, courts could also invite the parents to administer a caning under police supervision, and then dismiss the charge once it was satisfied that this had been done. Adult men received up to 50 strokes with the cat, again at each of up to three whippings, all of which had to be administered within six months of the sentence. There had been four instances of this from 1932 to 1937.

    Flogging with the cat for adult male offenders, and birching and parental caning for boys, were still in use in South Australia in the 1950s, as may be seen in several historical news items. The clearest picture of what the "parental caning" involved comes in this May 1956 illustrated news item, where it is interesting to note that one youth so caned was aged 17, despite the supposed upper limit of 14 (according to Cadogan).

    Tasmania is listed as "none" in Cadogan, and not mentioned at all in Benson, but this appears to mean only that no information had been obtained, not that there was no JCP there. Certainly Tasmania had legislation providing for juveniles to be whipped (see links to documents below).

    In Victoria there was provision under 1928 legislation for boys under 16 to be caned on summary conviction for any offence, which punishment "shall not exceed in degree or severity such as may lawfully be inflicted by schoolmasters", perhaps suggesting that this penalty was delivered over the offender's trousers. There was also a "parental caning with no conviction recorded" option, similar to that in South Australia. More serious offences were punished on the bare posterior with a birch "consisting of willow withes soaked in water" or, for adult men, on the upper back with a cat-o'-nine-tails, with the same maxima as for South Australia.

    There had been seven floggings in one year around 1930 in Victoria -- here is a brief report of a court case in which a birching was ordered. As of 1937 there had been one juvenile birching and 10 adult floggings in the previous five years.

    In Western Australia the implement could be a cane, birch, or leather strap, or (for offenders over 18) the cat. Boys under 16 could be whipped for any offence on summary conviction under a 1927 statute. The maximum number of strokes was 12 for boys under 18, and 25 for adults.

    There had been two floggings in one year around 1930 in Western Australia (one of which was 12 strokes of the "cat" for rape). In 1937 it was claimed that there had been no JCP in the previous five years.

    Formal legislative abolition took place in 1971 in South Australia, 1973 in Tasmania, and 1974 in New South Wales, the ACT and Northern Territory, according to footnote 32 of this Law Reform Commission document published in 1980, which also stated (at para. 63) that at that point JCP was still on the statute books in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

    In Victoria a Committee sat in 1948 to consider abolition of the birch or the cat or both, but its members could not agree. Abolition did not result: two Victoria criminals were ordered to be flogged with the cat in 1957, and the flogging was actually carried out the following year. A press report of the case stated that this was Victoria's first judicial whipping since 1943.

    That case was said by the aforementioned 1980 Law Reform Commission paper (at para. 39) to be the "last officially sanctioned whipping in Australia", but there had been juvenile cases more recently than that in which courts ordered parents to administer formal CP to their sons (e.g. "Boys remanded for thrashing by father", The West Australian, Perth, 6 January 1970, not yet on line).

    There are pictures of some of the equipment used in Victoria and South Australia.

Extracts from legislation:

Tasmania: Juvenile Offenders Act 1875 [HISTORY]
Law authorising courts to impose strokes with a cane, strap or birch on boys under 19. Except for the unusually wide choice of implements, this largely follows the British terminology and practice of the era. Note that "once, twice or thrice whipped" here means one, two or three separate punishment sessions, separated by an interval of at least 24 hours, each involving several strokes.

South Australia: Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935-1957 [HISTORY]
A clause added in 1940 made whipping mandatory for rape. Other clauses provided for a sentence of up to three whippings of 50 strokes each (25 for boys under 16).

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Prison Telegraph: Crime and Punishment [PDF] [HISTORY]
Educational handout from Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. There is a crude drawing of a prison flogging in the 1850s. According to this, the last flogging with the cat at Fremantle was in June 1943, and the last birching in August 1962. It is not made clear whether these were ordered by a court or by visiting magistrates for reasons of internal prison discipline. The document also claims that JCP was not formally abolished in Western Australia until 1993, which seems surprisingly recent.

Other external links for Australia/Judicial

AUSTRALIA: School CP

Australian Capital Territory: According to this 1997 statement by the state government , CP has been banned since 1988 in state schools and was said to have fallen into disuse in Anglican and Catholic schools, but possibly at that time was still used by some other private schools. GITEACPOC says that it was outlawed in all ACT schools in 1997.

New South Wales: CP was abolished in state schools in 1986 (though it was temporarily reintroduced in 1988) and in private schools in 1997.

Northern Territory: A December 2004 document by the Australian Institute of Family Studies claimed that NT was by then the only part of Australia where CP had not been banned in government schools.

Queensland: The official implement was the cane, restricted since 1934 to boys only. CP was abolished in state schools in 1995 (see external links below) but is still available to private schools, some of which, especially Christian schools, state that they use it.

South Australia: a 1956 news report claimed that CP of girls was banned. CP was reportedly abolished in state schools in 1982, although another report said in 1990 that it was still by then only in the process of being phased out. However, GITEACPOC maintains that CP is still lawful in both public and private schools. Perhaps it was banned by administrative regulation rather than by legislation.

Tasmania: Corporal punishment was abolished in all schools in 1999, not in 1994 as claimed by GITEACPOC.

Victoria: the strap on the hand (boys only; girls were exempt) was the official method in state schools; it was abolished in 1983. CP (cane or strap) is said to be still used by a few private schools, though there seems to be only one school that says so publicly. The local government is now in the process of abolishing CP in private schools, not directly but by making registration of each school conditional upon its absence: see this December 2005 news item and this February 2006 follow-up.

Western Australia: banned in all government schools since 1987, but was said in 1998 to be still used by a small number of private schools.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Violence: directions for Australia  (Alternative link) [HISTORY]
1990 document from the Australian Institute of Criminology. Note the assumed polarisation to the extremes: we are told that some authorities regard CP as "essential", while others oppose it as "archaic and excessive". Is it not at least possible that most reasonable people regard it as neither of these things, but somewhere in the large gap between the two?
    Anyway, according to this, CP was restored in New South Wales in November 1988 and was evidently still lawful there in 1990.

Extracts from the regulations of the Department of Education [HISTORY]
A timeline setting out the development of the rules for school CP in Queensland.

Education history - Legal aspects [HISTORY]
Also from the Queensland government, a short history of school CP in the state, mentioning some relevant legal cases. There is a photograph of a cane broken in two, presumably symbolising the 1995 abolition. On this continuation page is an extract from a school punishment book in 1936.

Education Regulations 2000 [PDF]
These are the rules for the State of Victoria under which corporal punishment is prohibited in state (but not private) schools.

Other external links for Australia/Schools

AUSTRIA: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Cadogan (1938) states that judicial CP in Austria had been abolished by the Criminal Code of 1867. Possibly this legislation applied to the whole Austrian Empire, an entity much larger than present-day Austria, including what is now Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and bits of Poland, Romania, Italy, Croatia and Ukraine.

BAHAMAS, THE: Judicial CP

Judicial corporal punishment in this former British colony in the Caribbean, abolished in 1984, was reintroduced in 1991; but calls for its "return" in November 2002 and again in August 2005 suggest that these provisions were regarded locally as having fallen into disuse.

    However, new flogging sentences were handed down in October 2006 and in May 2007, and it remains to be seen whether these will be carried out.

Annual return 1937 - Juvenile offenders [HISTORY]
Statistical return sent by the local government to the Colonial Office, with annotations by "Sir Humphrey" after its arrival in London ("They seem to be rather fond of whipping juveniles in Bahamas"). Lists about 120 cases of whippings of boys with the "tamarind rod", probably a kind of birch. The offenders were aged between 9 and 16 inclusive, and the number of strokes ranged from 2 to 12. These figures would seem to call into question a claim by Benson (1937) that there were only 11 cases in 1930 and none at all in 1935.

Bahamas Penal Code, Chapter 48, s.118
Legislation providing for flogging with cat on back (up to 24 strokes) or "rod" on buttocks (up to 12 strokes) for adult male offenders. The punishment could be given in instalments, and only half those numbers of strokes might be administered on any one occasion. The date of introduction is not known. This section was repealed in 1984. When JCP was brought back in 1991, the identical provisions were re-enacted as Part II of the Criminal Law (Measures) Act 1991. All adult floggings must be inflicted in the prison at New Providence.

    However, in a separate clause of the 1991 Act, there is also provision for the whipping of boys under 18 with a "light cane" on the buttocks, not necessarily in New Providence. It seems that these juvenile canings are delivered in police stations, not in the prison. (This would echo pre-1948 UK practice for juvenile JCP.) There are no reports to hand of any actual cases, which could mean either that they never happen in practice, or that juvenile cases don't get reported.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Criminal Law (Measures) Act, 1991
Here is the legislation which reintroduced judicial CP in The Bahamas. It is made explicit that no sentence of flogging or whipping shall be passed on a female of any age. The section on the caning of boys under 18 (maximum two instalments of 6 strokes each) says that the parent or guardian may be present, and may even carry out the whipping, if the court so decides. Otherwise the punishment is to be delivered by "such other person as the court may approve".

Pinder v The Queen  (Alternative link)
Case in which an armed robber was sentenced in 1997 to a flogging in two instalments of three strokes each. The appeal reached the Privy Council in London (2002), which by 3 votes to 2 upheld the flogging as not unconstitutional, even though the original court had failed to specify with what instrument the strokes were to be inflicted. This law report summarises the Privy Council's decision.

Pinder v The Queen [RTF]
The Privy Council's full statement of reasons in the above case. Paragraph 43, which is part of the minority dissenting opinion, sets out the legal provisions in force after the reintroduction in 1991. Incidentally, their Lordships are in error in twice stating (at paras. 4 and 53) that CP for prison offences was abolished in the UK in 1953. This did not in fact happen until 1965 (the last such flogging having taken place in 1962).

Report of the Special Rapporteur [HISTORY]
UN document (ignore the heading about Pakistan) giving names and dates for two flogging sentences in 1995, reportedly the first since reintroduction in 1991.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 1995 [HISTORY]
US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 1996 [HISTORY]
Judicial corporal punishment was abolished in The Bahamas in 1984 but reintroduced in 1991. The 1995 report mentioned that it retains broad public support. The 1996 report curiously fails to mention a case in which a convicted rapist reportedly received his "six strokes of the rod" before his time for appealing had elapsed -- see this August 1996 news item.

Amnesty International Report 1998 [HISTORY]  (Alternative link)
Cites a case of judicial caning ordered in 1997.

Amnesty International Report 1999  (Alternative link)
States that there was a retrial in the above-mentioned 1997 case, and corporal punishment was not part of the new sentence.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2000
The 1997, 1998 and 1999 reports repeat the 1996 wording, but the 2000 document gives more detail. Caning (presumably this means the juvenile canings mentioned earlier) is "permitted at police stations but only if performed by a sergeant or higher ranking official" -- but there is no indication as to how often this is invoked -- while the cat-o-nine-tails is allowed in prisons but used rarely.

Amnesty International Report 2001  (Alternative link)
Judicial caning remained on the statute book in 2000, but no new sentences were imposed or carried out.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2001
US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2002
No JCP was ordered in 2001 or 2002, according to these reports, and the "cat" had not been used for several years. (The 2003, 2004 and 2005 reports don't mention CP at all.)

BAHAMAS, THE: Prison CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Prison Rules
Section 243 provides that, for certain specified offences, the chairman plus two members of the committee may order a male prisoner to receive punishment with a tamarind rod. For very serious offences by a prisoner over 18, they may recommend the cat-o'-nine-tails, but that has to be approved by the Governor-General. There is a maximum of 24 strokes for prisoners over 18, and 12 strokes below that age.

BAHAMAS, THE: Reformatory CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Children and Young Persons (Administration of Justice) Act
See Section 68 for the Industrial School for Girls Rules and the Industrial School for Boys Rules. Errant inmates of the girls' institution may be given three strokes on each hand "with a tamarind or similar rod". At the equivalent establishment for boys, the Superintendent may award up to ten strokes (target area unspecified) with a light cane for minor offences. More serious matters are punished by the visiting committee, who may impose "such reasonable punishment as may be necessary".

BAHAMAS, THE: School CP

Corporal punishment, sometimes referred to locally as "flogging", is lawful in schools in The Bahamas and remains in use.

    According to this March 2007 news item, in state schools it is a requirement that CP be recorded in a book. There is some confusion about the implements to be used.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Teen Pregnancy on the Rise
Item from Radio Abaco (April 2001) summarises the Ministry of Education's rules for the application of corporal punishment in schools with "a bamboo cane". This appears to conflict with a February 1999 news report quoting an Education Minister as saying that caning was no longer authorised, and that only a flat paddle or ruler might be used. The person administering the punishment must be of the same sex as the student.

Other external links for Bahamas/Schools

BANGLADESH: Judicial CP

Bangladesh was formerly East Pakistan, and before 1947 part of India. Its population is mainly Moslem but it is officially a secular state, with no Islamic law. However, unofficial traditional courts of village elders ("salish") in rural areas have not been prevented from imposing whippings. See this June 1987 news item about a case in which a young man and woman were publicly flogged for adultery. And in October 1995 another young woman was given 101 lashes for similar reasons.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

The anti-CP campaign GITEACPOC says that, quite apart from the unofficial floggings mentioned above, Bangladesh has not repealed the Indian Code of Criminal Procedure of 1898, under which male offenders may be legally ordered to be whipped. I have never come across any reports of this actually happening, and various human rights reports do not mention it.

Report of the Special Rapporteur (1996)
Mentions public floggings (usually of women) ordered by local village councils.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1998
A 14-year-old girl was given 101 lashes for being raped; a woman and her husband were given 101 lashes and had their heads shaved. These punishments were ordered by "local arbitrators", not the official courts.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2000
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2001
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2002
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2003
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2004
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2005
The whipping by unofficial rural courts of women accused of moral offences continued in successive years. Each year's report gives the number of cases reported (usually fewer than 20). However, the 2006 report does not specifically mention flogging or whipping.

BARBADOS: Judicial CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Report of the National Commission on Law and Order, June 2004 [PDF]
See pages 131 ff., where we learn that adult floggings with the "cat" were ordered up to 1992 but then outlawed by the Court of Appeal. However, the GITEACPOC website claims that JCP is still in force for juvenile offenders.

BARBADOS: School CP

Corporal punishment, described as "lashing" or "flogging" or "licks", is in use in schools. There is anecdotal evidence that in practice it is usually given only to boys. A recent Code of Discipline states that CP is permitted at all levels - see this January 2005 news item - but no details as to what form it takes have come to hand. This follows the Minister of Education's acceptance in August 2004 of a recommendation by the National Commission on Law and Order that CP be retained (see below).

    In July 2005, following a case of injury to a child's buttocks as a result of a "flogging" by a primary school teacher, the Barbados Union of Teachers reminded its members that CP may be administered only by a school principal or senior teacher.

    The same organisation's publication Teachers' Handbook: The Scope Of The School's Authority (not currently on line) summarises the corporal punishment provisions of the Education Regulations 1982. It recommends that a cane only be used and says that it is advisable, but apparently not mandatory, to have a witness present.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Report of the National Commission on Law and Order, June 2004 [PDF]
See pages 128 ff. of this large document, which rejects external pressure by UN bodies and so on to abolish CP in schools on the grounds that the local community is strongly in favour of it.

Other external links for Barbados/Schools

BELIZE: Judicial CP

Belize is a very small former British Colony in Central America, from which little news is heard.

    One might expect that a country with official prison flogging on its statute book (see below) would also have judicial CP, but apparently not.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Anti-CP campaigners GITEACPOC say that JCP has been unlawful in Belize since at least 1993.

Other external links for Belize/Schools

BELIZE: Prison CP

Two prisoners tamarind whipped
March 2000 news item describes the carrying-out of sentences of 12 and 6 lashes with a "tamarind whip" respectively on two named prisoners, for attacking fellow-inmates a few weeks earlier. They were reported to be "strapped to a whipping horse" to receive the punishment. These were claimed to be the first floggings since 1975. The article doesn't explain why this type of punishment was suddenly brought back into use after lying dormant for 25 years.

    Since the tamarind is actually a tree, I think that "whip" is a misnomer, and that the implement is really akin to a "birch rod", i.e. a bundle of a few slender branches: cf. Jamaica, where the "tamarind switch" seems to have been more or less identical to the post-1960 Isle of Man birch.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Government commitments and human rights in Belize
Amnesty International report (July 2000) mentions the above case and adds the detail that the tamarind punishments were applied to the prisoners' buttocks.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2000
A bit more on the above case. It seems the floggings led to a riot the following day, in which one prisoner was killed. Despite this, another flogging took place in the prison five months later (see this Aug 2000 news item). (USSD reports for more recent years make no mention of any further cases.)

The anti-CP website GITEACPOC states that the Prison Rules still (June 2007) permit CP in penal institutions.

BELIZE: School CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

The anti-CP campaign GITEACPOC says that CP in school is lawful under the Education Act 1991, as amended in 2000. It is supposed to be a last resort, for "serious and repeated offences". New rules drafted in 1999 did not include corporal punishment, but the teachers' union protested, and provision for CP was reinstated in revised rules in 2000. It is also claimed, rather bizarrely, that "police are reportedly regularly called in to some schools to beat children", but it is not clear whether this means administering proper CP or just beating them up.

Other external links for Belize/Schools

BERMUDA: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory.

    Whipping with cat or cane by order of the courts was a regular occurrence in the 1940s. By the 1960s it had become rare (source: annual police and prisons reports in the British Library). In 1985 a 14-year-old boy was sentenced to six strokes of the birch (Daily Telegraph, London, 20 July 1985), reportedly the first such sentence in over a decade. The case went to appeal and the outcome is not currently to hand.

    Judicial corporal punishment was outlawed by the Abolition of Capital and Corporal Punishment Act 1999. This appears to have been part of a deal with the UK in exchange for full British citizenship rights. See this Dec 1999 news item, which also claimed that the "cat" had not been used since 1961.

BERMUDA: Prison CP [HISTORY]

Benson (1937) reports two cases in 1935. Corporal punishment in penal institutions was outlawed by the Abolition of Capital and Corporal Punishment Act 1999.

Prison Rules 1951
Detailed rules for the infliction of the cat, on the bare back, and the cane and the birch, on the bare buttocks.

BERMUDA: School CP

Spare the rod, urges children's advocate
News item quotes 1996 code of practice for using the cane or strap in government schools: a maximum of four strokes on the hand.

    This 2002 news item said that the only school using CP at that time was Warwick Academy [PDF], but this must mean the only private school.

    Three boys aged 10 and 11 were publicly strapped at Northlands Primary School in 1998.

    A May 2006 interview with the leader of the teachers' union makes clear that CP may now be administered only by school principals; the union wants this power restored to ordinary teachers.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

As at December 1998, according to this written answer in the UK House of Lords, school corporal punishment was still permitted. The GITEACPOC website says that it still is.

Other external links for Bermuda/Schools

BHUTAN: Judicial and prison CP

Little is known about this small kingdom in the Himalayas. As far as can be ascertained, there is no provision for corporal punishment in the legal system.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Amnesty International Report 1998 [HISTORY]  (Alternative link)
This says that four people were held at a police station and flogged daily in September 1997. Amnesty reports for subsequent years make no reference to flogging, but they do mention political dissidents being held and "beaten", so we can probably infer that this was illicit torture and not CP.

BOLIVIA: Judicial CP

Native "community justice" in the form of judicial whipping, on the orders of village elders, is making a comeback, according to these Nov 2006 news items.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 1995
Indigenous communities in areas "with little or no government presence" impose whippings, contrary to the Constitution. (The same information is repeated in the 1996 USSD report, but not mentioned from 1997 onwards.)

GITEACPOC says that JCP "may be ordered by community elders in traditional Indian justice systems, still used in much of the country".

BOLIVIA: School CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 1995
"Corporal punishment" in schools is common, according to this, but it not clear whether this means proper formal CP. More likely it just refers to casual brutality. The same information is repeated in every year's USSD report up to 2006, but no further details are provided.

GITEACPOC confirms that school CP is not banned by law but says it is reportedly prohibited by regulation.

BOTSWANA: Judicial CP

Judicial caning is routine, especially at the customary (tribal) court in each village, known as the "Kgotla", a sort of open-air town meeting. Official courts may order males aged 14-40 to be caned on the bare buttocks for almost any crime, generally as an alternative to imprisonment. At tribal courts the age limit rises to 50, and according to some reports these courts may also cane women, though other accounts dispute this, and when a woman actually was flogged it was said to be illegal. Reports suggest that the punishment is often inflicted on the spot immediately the court rises.

    In a July 2005 caning case, the punishment was photographed being administered in public, whereupon the authorities ordered that the procedure must henceforth be private. However, this July 2006 news item appears to imply that journalists may watch if they so wish.

    This May 2006 news item reports from one village court where there are at least 50 cases of theft per week, always punished by "three to five lashes on the bare buttocks". See also this Aug 2007 account of the procedure at a customary court.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

The GITEACPOC website gives a bit more detail about the relevant legislation.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1993 [HISTORY]
Caning was allowed for certain offences for men below age 40. The rules prescribed strokes only across the buttocks. Corporal punishment for children under 14 was outlawed by the High Court, but village headmen "may beat children under rules of traditional punishment". Caning was mandatory for rape.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1996
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1998
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2003
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2004
District customary courts continued to sentence village youths to strokes (instrument not specified) on the buttocks for vandalism and the like. (The 1996 report quotes the example of nine young men being sentenced by a district customary court to six strokes each for common nuisance.)
    The House of Chiefs, an advisory body, thought the strokes should be across the back, but saw its motion to that effect turned down by the Government, which takes the view that the proper place for punishing naughty boys is their bottoms.
    On a more serious note the 1998 report adds that the minimum sentence for rape now includes corporal punishment if the offender is HIV positive. (The 2000, 2001 and 2002 reports merely repeat the same information as the earlier reports.)
    The 2003 and 2004 reports add that illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe, too, were judicially caned (see also this Jan 2004 news item and its follows-up).
    The 2005 and 2006 USSD reports add nothing new.

Other external links for Botswana/Judicial

BOTSWANA: School CP

The government has no intention of abolishing caning in schools, according to this Aug 2006 news report.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Caning students should be light
Feb 2001 news item (scroll down to third item on page) includes government guidelines under the Education Act 1967. A light cane not more than 1 metre long should be used on palms or buttocks, max. five strokes at secondary and three strokes at primary level. In primary schools it is also permissible to cane the back of the student's legs. Male teachers (other than head teachers) may not cane girls.

Other external links for Botswana/Schools

BRUNEI: Judicial CP

Brunei is a small Malay sultanate on the island of Borneo. It is not part of Malaysia, but is entirely surrounded by two states of Malaysia. The courts regularly order male offenders to be caned for a wide range of offences.

    In general the procedure is similar to that of Singapore, i.e. the offender is secured to a frame in a bending-over position and caned across his unclothed seat. However, unlike in Singapore, the official terminology remains British, and in the legislation the penalty is thus referred to as "whipping".

    See feature article Judicial caning in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei (illustrated) for details of history and modus operandi and an overview of the legislative situation.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Brunei Courts Judgements
From this page, you can access all the High Court judgments from 1987 to 1997 inclusive. Caning sentences are mentioned in a good few of them from 1988 onwards. These are all large PDF documents. To find all the relevant cases, use your browser to perform a keyword search within each document for "whipping", "strokes" and "corporal punishment".

Legislation on sexual offences against children
Extracts from numerous bits of legislation providing for "whipping" (i.e. caning) as a penalty for various offences.

The GITEACPOC website quotes legislation restricting the number of strokes to 18 for a "youthful offender" instead of the 24-stroke maximum for adult men, and says that these juvenile canings "should be inflicted in the way of school discipline", which presumably means over trousers and with a smaller cane.
    In practice, reports of juvenile JCP are rare. This might only be because newspapers fail to report such cases, but I slightly doubt it: in this tiny country, even a minor traffic jam gets headlines in the local press.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 1999
US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2000
US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2001
Judicial caning became mandatory in 1988 for 42 offences. According to this, 80% of criminal convictions result in caning (though that is not my own impression from a regular reading of the Brunei daily press). Each year's report quotes different cases in which canings were ordered for assaults on women and children. The document says many convicts are reported to prefer caning to lengthy incarceration, but cites no source for this claim. (The 2002 and 2003 reports add nothing new.)

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2004
Mentions that caning was extended to cover immigration offences (see also these Feb 2004 news items). (The 2005 and 2006 reports add nothing new.)

BRUNEI: Reformatory CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Youthful Offenders (Place of Detention) Rules [PDF]
See Part XI, section 51, for rules governing "whipping with a light cane" for males only for serious offences against discipline in a reformatory institution. This punishment award is made by the Advisory Board or the Superintendent on a referral from the Warden. The instrument is a light cane and the maximum number of strokes is 10 for an inmate over 14, and six under that age. Unusually for plainly British-derived rules of this kind, the part of the body to which the caning is to be applied is not specified. The Medical Officer must be present, and may stop the punishment. These provisions were last renewed as recently as 2001, so it seems reasonable to assume that they are probably still in force.

CANADA: Judicial and Prison CP [HISTORY]

Corporal punishment for violations of internal prison discipline in Canada was delivered to the prisoner's bare posterior with a large leather strap. JCP as a court sentence could be either with the same strap, if the court so specified, or otherwise with a cat-o'-nine-tails across the shoulders, in either case combined with a jail term and inflicted in prison.

    This 1931 court case in Manitoba is an example in which two bank robbers were jailed and given 10 lashes with the cat.

    In a more recent case from January 1956, three youths aged 17, 18 and 21 were each sentenced in Alberta to 12 strokes of the "paddle" (an alternative name for the leather strap) plus six years each in jail, for assaulting a girl. The judge ordered that the strappings were to be administered in two instalments, at the beginning and the end of the prison term.

    Benson and Glover (1931) state that in 1929 there were 78 floggings by order of the courts, and 72 strappings for breaches of prison discipline. Benson (1937) updates these figures for 1935 to 40 and 50 respectively.

    All the above (and everything in the article linked below) applied only to youths over 16 and adult men, but Cadogan (1938) also notes that courts could order boys under 16 to be "spanked" (no details provided), and that there were 55 such spankings per year on average between 1932 and 1936.

    Judicial and prison CP was abolished by legislation in 1972.

The Canadian Prison Strap [HISTORY]
Three-part feature article (illustrated) on pre-1972 use of the leather strap or "paddle" in prisons, both for internal discipline offences and as court-ordered punishment:

• Part 1: The Official View
• Part 2: From the Receiving End
• Part 3: The Equipment Used

Evidence of Ontario Director of Public Prosecutions [HISTORY]
Evidence of Warden of Kingston Penitentiary [HISTORY]
Evidence of Ontario Deputy Minister for Reform Institutions [HISTORY]
Witness statements to the parliamentary committee on corporal punishment, 1953-55.

External links for Canada/Judicial

CANADA: Reformatory CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Beadle, Beadle and Beadle v The Queen and Others
British Columbia case about paddlings and spankings (but also much else) in foster homes in the 1960s.

CANADA: School CP [HISTORY]

Corporal punishment in all schools was outlawed by a Supreme Court decision in 2004. Most provinces had already abolished it, and the only schools reported as still using it at all frequently in recent years were in Alberta and, to a lesser extent, Manitoba.

    In state schools the traditional mode of CP had been the strap across the hands, after the manner of historic Scottish practice except that, at any rate in modern times, the strap used was generally of a rubber/canvas mixture rather than of leather.

    Reports suggest that some private schools were more inclined to use English-style caning or American-style paddling over the posterior.

Photographs of school straps [HISTORY]
The typical rubber/canvas strap illustrated, with an extract from a 1971 catalogue in which these were sold to schools.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Bibliography of Reported Corporal Punishment Cases in Canada [HISTORY]
From the University of New Brunswick. There has been a surprisingly large number of legal cases over school corporal punishment. Some are fairly recent, others date back to the 19th century. To look these references up, you would need to have access to many different series of Canadian law reports.

Rules and Regulations for the Management and Government of Common Schools [HISTORY]
Rules for British Columbia in 1870. These recommended using corporal punishment (no practical details laid down) only where it was "imperatively necessary".

Other external links for Canada/Schools

CHILE: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Benson (1937) states that judicial CP in Chile had been abolished in 1928.

CHINA

Historically, the idea of corporal punishment seems to have been quite deeply ingrained in Confucian culture, and school, domestic and judicial CP was widely practised for many centuries. This 2003 article, complete with an engraving of miscreants being flogged on the bare buttocks in front of the Emperor, dates the practice at least back to the 11th century BC, and claims that JCP was formally abolished in 1909. This photograph shows a judicial flogging taking place around 1900.

    Present-day China's official propaganda line has always been that all forms of corporal punishment were swept away by the 1949 communist revolution. In reality, it is clear that Beijing's writ has not always run consistently throughout this vast territory. In March 1991 it was claimed that parents refusing to follow the regime's one-child policy were caned on their bare buttocks.

    A May 2000 report suggested that beatings in schools were widespread, and this video clip of boys being caned in class, if it really is from China, shows that at least some of this CP is remarkably "formal" in style, even though it is illegal.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

GITEACPOC cites various surveys suggesting that beatings by teachers are widespread in Chinese schools. How much of this is proper formal (albeit illicit) CP, as opposed to casual brutality, remains unclear.

External links for China/Judicial

Other external links for China/Schools

CYPRUS: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

During the political troubles of the middle 1950s (when Greek Cypriots were rioting against the British colonial powers and agitating for union with Greece), emergency laws were introduced to enable the courts to order male teenagers to be caned for taking part in unlawful assemblies. This scheme started in December 1955.

    From this January 1956 news report it becomes clear that the youths were caned over the seat of their trousers while they bent over a chair. This is unusual in British colonial judicial CP, which has normally involved the baring of buttocks.

    This June 1956 follow-up report emphasises that it was a fairly mild schoolboy-style punishment, and not the vicious flogging with a cat that Greek propagandists were claiming.

    No references to further caning sentences have been found after the end of 1956, and it may be that the experiment was abandoned as counter-productive in public-relations terms.

    However, there had also been JCP in Cyprus for ordinary offences. Benson (1937) records that 8 adults were sentenced to "flogging" (no details provided) in 1935.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Consideration of reports submitted by states parties
Cyprus became independent in 1960. This UN document from as recently as 1993 notes (at paragraph 105) that the Criminal Code had included provisions for "whipping and caning", which were repealed as unconstitutional; it does not say when this happened.

CYPRUS: School CP [HISTORY]

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

GITEACPOC states that CP has been unlawful in Cyprus schools since 1967, but cites no source for this information.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Benson (1937) states that judicial CP in Bohemia and Moravia-Silesia had been abolished in 1867, when they were under Austrian rule.

DENMARK: Judicial and Prison CP [HISTORY]

Cadogan (1938) reports that judicial CP was abolished in Denmark in 1911. Before then, boys aged 10-18 and girls aged 10-12 could be awarded corporal punishment (no details given) by the courts. Adults aged 18 to 55 could be flogged for rape and indecent assault.

    CP for internal prison discipline offences was abolished with effect from 1933.

DOMINICA: Judicial CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Committee on Rights of Child Reviews Initial Report of Dominica (May 2004)
This tiny Caribbean country still has penal legislation providing for the flogging of children aged 12 and above, according to this.

GITEACPOC confirms that boys under 16 may be sentenced by the courts to undergo a whipping of up to 12 strokes.

EGYPT: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Only young delinquents aged from 7 to 15 could be ordered CP by the courts; this consisted of up to 24 strokes with a cane. A physician had to be present. This punishment could be applied for any offence. There were 4,045 such canings in 1928-29 (Benson & Glover, 1931) and 7,422 in 1934-35 (Benson, 1937). It is not clear when this provision was abolished.

    Also unclear, if the above information is correct, is the basis on which this 1950s flogging of an adult man was imposed. Perhaps it was an illicit punishment (though the equipment used looks "official"), or maybe the law had been changed by then to countenance JCP for adults.

Other external links for Egypt/Judicial

EGYPT: Prison CP [HISTORY]

Benson and Glover (1931) recorded 529 floggings for prison discipline reasons (revolt, violence, insubordination) in 1929. Remarkably, this figure had risen to 2,702 in 1935, according to Benson (1937). This punishment was applied with a cat-o'-nine-tails for prisoners over 18, and with a cane for juveniles. The maximum number of strokes in convict prisons was 36, and in local prisons 24 (or 12 for juveniles under 18).

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

US State Department Reports on Human Rights Practices: Egypt - 2001 [HISTORY]
Mentions that flogging as a disciplinary measure in Egyptian prisons, under a law of 1956, was abolished in 2001. See also this December 2001 news item.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights welcomes the abolishing of the whipping penalty
Further to the previous item, this news release from December 2001 describes the implement formerly used, which sounds rather like a cat-o-seven-tails. Prisoners under 17 could be caned. It also mentions that a decision to whip 40 prisoners was made as recently as 1996.

ESTONIA: Reformatory CP [HISTORY]

Benson (1937) reports that boys and girls could be punished with "a light rod" for misbehaviour in reformatories, with a maximum of six strokes under age 14, and 12 strokes if over that age. There were 23 such canings in the year 1935-36.

    This provision presumably ceased to apply when Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union from World War II onwards.

ETHIOPIA: Judicial CP

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Crime and Punishment: The Legal System [HISTORY]
Report on the situation in Ethiopia which states that the penal code introduced by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930 gave the courts power to order flogging (no details given). There was another new penal code in the 1960s but it is not clear from the document whether this retained the corporal punishment provisions. There is no mention of corporal punishment playing any role after the 1974 revolution.

GITEACPOC states that provisions for the judicial caning of child offenders (undefined) of up to 12 strokes were recently repealed.

FIJI: Judicial CP

As far as is known, judicial CP (max. 12 strokes) remains on the statute book in Fiji for males of 17 or over, despite a 2002 High Court ruling that corporal punishment is unconstitutional. The most recent case to hand involved a rapist and robber (pictured) being sentenced to a caning in May 2005. However, this was reported to be subject to High Court approval, which would presumably not be forthcoming if that court's 2002 ruling has been correctly reported.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

GITEACPOC says that JCP for offenders under 17 was abolished under the Juveniles Act 1974.

Waisake Ceacea v. R. [HISTORY]
Report of a 1977 Supreme Court hearing in which a sentence of 10 strokes and 8 years for rape was upheld.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 1999
This report stated that judicial corporal punishment was rarely used. (The 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 reports repeat the same information.)

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2004
JCP was still on the statute book, but no cases had been reported.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2005
Notes that JCP had been ruled unconstitutional and reports on the May 2005 caning sentence by a magistrate's court mentioned above, but states that the punishment had not been carried out. (The 2006 report adds no further information.)

FIJI: School CP

Corporal punishment continues to be applied in schools in Fiji, despite the High Court ruling of 2002 (see judicial CP, above), which was reported at the time as covering school CP also - see for instance this April 2002 news item.

    Various bodies, including the Fijian Teachers Association and the Great Council of Chiefs, as well as the Methodist Church, strongly oppose abolition.

    One January 2005 report revealed a state of confusion in the Education Ministry, with the acting chief executive wanting to "reintroduce" it while the Education Minister said she would not condone it.

    At all events, the legislation has not yet been changed to impose any explicit ban on school CP, which has traditionally been administered with a leather strap.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1999
This US State Department document states (in Section 5) that corporal punishment was administered in some schools, and refers to reports of beatings in religious schools. It is strange to find a US Government report taking it as read that school CP is a Bad Thing. Perhaps to be even-handed they should produce a report on "Human Rights Practices" in the USA? (The reports for 2000 and 2001 merely repeat the same information.)

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2002
The report notes that the High Court had ruled school CP unconstitutional, but the Education Minister had said that it was an effective form of discipline. (The 2003 report adds nothing new. The reports for 2004 and 2005 do not mention school CP.)

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2006
According to this, the Education Ministry has issued a policy forbidding the use of corporal punishment in schools. Despite this, CP "was common both in homes and in schools".

Other external links for Fiji/Schools

FINLAND: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Adult JCP was abolished in 1889, according to Cadogan (1938).

    Benson & Glover (1931) state that courts could order boys and girls aged 7 to 16 to be birched. This was to be carried out by the parent or guardian at home, with an official witness, but if the parent or guardian refused to do it, a court official would carry out the punishment.

    There were 178 of these juvenile birchings in 1927 (167 boys and 11 girls). Cadogan adds that 911 such cases were recorded in the period 1930 to 1934. It is not known when these provisions were rescinded.

FINLAND: Prison CP [HISTORY]

Benson & Glover (1931) note, Cadogan (1938) concurring, that adult prisoners could be given up to 25 strokes with a rattan cane for serious offences against discipline. The prisoner to be caned was medically examined beforehand, and a doctor was usually present at the infliction, during which "the body is protected with a sheet".

    There were 9 such prison canings in 1928, and an average of 22 per year over the period 1930 to 1934. This legislation was later repealed (date of abolition not currently to hand).

GERMANY: Judicial and prison CP [HISTORY]

Corporal punishment as a judicial penalty ordered by the courts in Germany seems to have died out in the early 20th century, but the details of this change are not to hand. Benson and Glover (1931) claim there was no JCP at that time, and also say that there was no prison CP either; Benson (1937) repeats this latter claim, which appears by then to be incorrect.

    Contrary to some reports, the 1933-1945 Nazi regime never officially had JCP on the statute book (though of course there was plenty of unofficial brutality of a more general kind). It did however have a policy of formal caning on the bare buttocks (max. 25 strokes, for males and possibly also for females) for internal disciplinary reasons in prisons and youth institutions. This soon came to include, but was certainly not peculiar to, the notorious concentration camps and death camps.

    The legislation enabling prison caning was probably something the Nazis inherited -- along with the special equipment used -- rather than introduced themselves, though it might have been a revival of something that had in practice fallen into disuse before 1933. In earlier times a birch or whip had been used. It is not clear when the change to the cane was made, but there is a reference to a "hazel stick" in Saxony in 1855.

    There is also some evidence that, as the rule of law collapsed during WW2, the Nazi hierarchy sometimes "got round" the absence of JCP by sending dissident teenagers to a reformatory with the express instruction that they be caned on arrival, presumably on trumped-up disciplinary charges (letter from Himmler to Heydrich, January 1942).

    It is not known whether these provisions fell into immediate disuse at the end of WW2, or when they were formally abolished.

Flogging in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany [HISTORY]
Descriptions of judicial birchings and prison whippings of men and women. According to this, CP for women was abolished in 1870 in Saxony.

GERMANY: School CP [HISTORY]

There was a tradition of school corporal punishment in Germany until relatively modern times. The usual instrument was a cane, but the use of straps has also been reported anecdotally.

    Contrary to myth, the Nazi regime (1933-45) did not reintroduce CP, because it had not been abolished. According to this July 1987 magazine article, what the Nazis did do was to "lift all restrictions" on it.

    After WW2, different Länder (regional states) dealt with the issue in different ways at different times: as time went on, caning was increasingly confined to older students, boys in particular. CP was not completely banned everywhere until 1983. This conflicts slightly with an unsourced claim by GITEACPOC that it has been prohibited since the 1970s.

    This 1968 magazine article includes a photograph of a classroom with a boy bending over and being disciplined by the schoolmaster with what looks more like a paddle than a cane. It is not known whether the picture is posed or real. The text says that caning was legal at that time in elementary schools, and describes a case in Baden-Württemberg of a teacher being threatened by the State with dismissal for using CP but being supported by parents.

    A July 1970 illustrated newspaper article noted that school caning had then only "recently" been abolished in Bavaria, and showed that state's "last school cane" being installed in a museum.

    In the East, the DDR (1945-1989), like all communist states, always claimed that there was no CP of any kind. It is not known whether this is actually true.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Eric Carle: The very busy illustrator
The creator of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" says he was caned on both hands at junior school in Nazi Germany.

GHANA: School CP

A 2001 newspaper editorial stated that caning had been gradually phased out. This turns out to be untrue. Several more recent news items have reported parents and opinion leaders calling for the "reintroduction" of corporal punishment, but no evidence is to hand that it was ever legally banned, and there are several reports of its use.

    This November 2005 news item makes it clear that corporal punishment is in fact widespread and legal. In theory it is regulated by the Ghana Education Service, which lays down a maximum of six strokes and seeks to discourage the use of CP in the classroom by ordinary teachers. Rather, the caning should be given by the headmaster or under his supervision.

    "Traditional rulers" (tribal chiefs) called in Oct 2007 for the "reintroduction" of school CP, by which they appear to have meant that classroom teachers should have the power to cane and not just headteachers.

    See also this photograph of a schoolgirl being caned in class.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Anti-CP agitators GITEACPOC confirm the rules mentioned above.

Selling the Bermuda Brand  (Alternative link)
One Adam Farrell (no relation) reports that he found corporal punishment "with a bamboo stick" was prevalent in Ghana when he was a volunteer teacher there fairly recently.

Other external links for Ghana/Schools

GRENADA: Judicial and prison CP

Grenada is a very small former British colony in the Caribbean. Judicial CP is lawful. No details are available beyond what is in the external links below, and no reports of actual cases have come to light.

This 1902 news item sets out the then new rules for flogging by cat or birch for misconduct in prison.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

According to GITEACPOC, flogging and whipping for adults is still in force in Grenada. Boys aged 7 to 15 may be whipped but not flogged. Girls may not receive JCP.

US State Department Human Rights Report for 1995
This notes that floggings (no details provided), though rare, were ordered for sex crimes and theft cases. (The USSD reports for 1996 to 2004 inclusive repeat the same information.)

US State Department Human Rights Report for 2005
Flogging "was rare but was used as punishment for sex crimes", which accounted for 50% of all court cases, according to this. (The USSD reports for 2006 and 2007 add nothing new.)

GUATEMALA: Judicial CP

Like other Latin American countries, Guatemala has no official judicial CP at national level. However, a 1996 treaty allows local indigenous tribes to apply customary punishments to their own people for certain crimes, even if these would otherwise be contrary to the national law.

    An example of where this included CP was seen in April 2006, when four Mayan youths were ordered by local elders to be publicly spanked by their parents, as shown in this video clip.

    For another case, see this May 2006 press item (in Spanish with rough English translation), which includes a photo of a young man showing the scars on his back after receiving 75 strokes with peach tree branches on the orders of local leaders following a public debate among the Kaqchitel people of his village. He was punished for carrying firearms and attempted kidnapping.

HONG KONG: Judicial CP [HISTORY]

Judicial caning was abolished in 1990. Thitherto it had been used by the courts, for relatively serious offences, on juvenile and adult males, usually but not always in addition to a prison term. Caning sentences were frequent in the 1950s but gradually declined to a handful per year in the 1980s.

    Benson (1937) claims that there were 191 instances of JCP in 1930, and only 61 in 1935.

    An Associated Press report in the New York Times (24 August 1989) said that 476 canings were awarded in 1952. According to this January 1989 news item, there were only 8 cases in 1988.

Ordinance No 39 of 1954 as amended [HISTORY]
Former legislation governing HK caning sentences (max. 18 strokes). The instrument was "a light cane or rattan", to be administered on the breech. If the offender chose to waive his right to appeal, he was to be caned within 24 hours of the sentence. These rules apply to males over 16; younger boys could also be sentenced to a caning, evidently under some other rules not currently to hand.

Public Order Ordinance 1981 [HISTORY]
Legislation providing for the caning of offenders of 14 years and over found in possession of an offensive weapon.

Patten may appeal for clemency on sentence [HISTORY]
Officers hated caning offenders [HISTORY]
Anecdotal reminiscences in the local press of Hong Kong judicial canings. According to these reports, the rattan used was over 1 metre long. A leather strap was tied round the recipient's back to protect the spine. His hands were secured by leather straps to a "wooden platform" (the meaning of this is unclear to me) and he was made to bend over with his trousers down. This earlier report speaks of bending over a "thick leather bar" and states that bleeding sometimes occurred.

    The general impression given by these accounts is that the punishment was probably not too dissimilar to present-day judicial caning in Singapore, though perhaps not quite so severe.

    See also these pictures of the equipment used, now on display in a museum. The cane shown, if it really is the genuine article, appears to be rather more than half an inch thick, hardly the "light cane" mentioned in the legislation.

EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window)

Leung Shing-wong v The Queen [HISTORY]
Case in the Court of Appeal (November 1970). The appellant aged 36 had been convicted of robbery and sentenced to 18 months in prison plus 14 strokes of the cane. The appeal court quashed the jail term but upheld the caning sentence. It did not think prison was appropriate in this case. "On the contrary, ... it would be infinitely preferable if after the sentence of corporal punishment has been carried out the appellant should be ejected from the precincts of the prison at the earliest possible opportunity so that any visible discomfort which he may be suffering at the time may be readily apparent to ... the public ... and to any of his friends who may be minded to commit [this] type of offence ...".

Hong Kong: Human Rights, Law and Autonomy -- The Risks of Transition [HISTORY]  (Alternative link)
Near the end of this long Amnesty document, in an Annex summarising previous concerns about Hong Kong, is a note about the controversy that arose in 1988 after two teenagers were caned for robbery.

HONG KONG: Reformatory CP

Reformatory School Rules, Cap.225 L.N.163/77 [HISTORY]
1977 regulations for the award of caning to "male detained persons" for certain offences against reformatory discipline. The medical officer was required to be present, from which we may deduce that these canings were a fairly serious business, even though administered "on the clothed buttocks" unlike the judicial ones in HK. Also interestingly different from, for example, British reformatory rules in that they give 48 hours in which to exercise a formal right of appeal to the Director, but the offender may waive this right and elect to undergo his punishment forthwith.

    According to GITEACPOC , these rules were amended in 1990. The CP provisions were presumably repealed at that time. At all events, they no longer apply.