TANZANIA: Judicial CP

This East African country inherited judicial caning from British rule (when it was called Tanganyika). The penalty is applicable only to male offenders under 45. For a typical case shortly after independence from Britain, see this June 1964 news item.

    The courts continue to make use of JCP up to the present day, except on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, where proposals to abolish it were reported in August 2004.

    When applied to adult men, caning is normally combined with imprisonment, as in these Dec 2006 cases, and in that event the custom is to deliver half the strokes at the beginning of the prison term and the other half at the end of it. Sometimes this is spelled out in the report of the court's sentence as in this July 2007 case, where the judge ordered four armed robbers to receive six strokes on arrival at the prison and six more at the end of their 30-year term.

    The punishment is administered, in the prison, to the offender's bare posterior. Offences typically so punished include rape and robbery.

    Boys under 18 may also be sentenced to caning, often on its own without imprisonment, in which case the offender may have to drop his pants, there and then, to undergo his punishment in the courtroom itself, as reported in these Aug 2006 news items. In such cases the caning is "public" to the extent that it is watched by the magistrates, reporters and whoever happens to be in the public gallery.

Minimum Sentences Act, 1963 [HISTORY]
Legislation stipulating that certain offenders must receive at least 12 strokes of the cane on entering prison and at least another 12 strokes just before release. This was repealed in 1972 (but see below).

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According to anti-CP agitators GITEACPOC, the Corporal Punishment Ordinance dates from 1930 and set a maximum of 12 strokes of the cane for juvenile offenders. The maximum for adults at that time was 20 strokes, evidently increased subsequently.

Contemporary Tanzanian Penal Policy: A Critical Analysis  (Alternative link) [PDF]
See section 3.2 of this (unfortunately undated) academic paper for some remarks on judicial corporal punishment. According to this, legislation in 1972 halved the number of strokes, but retained the principle of the Minimum Sentences Act, with six strokes to be inflicted at the start of the prison term and six immediately before final release. This seems to contradict a statement by UNHRC (see next item) that JCP was abolished altogether in 1972 and only brought back in 1989, a claim also made by GITEACPOC.
    The document also quotes the Corporal Punishment Order, which lays down that the rattan used for caning adults is to be not more than 42 inches long, and between half an inch and 5/8 of an inch in diameter, and that the punishment must be applied to the bare buttocks.

UN Human Rights Committee, February 1997
This claims that judicial corporal punishment was abolished in 1972 but reintroduced in 1989. The situation in 1997, says this document, was that canings were ordered only for violent offences such as rape and robbery with violence.

1995: Attacks on human rights through the misuse of criminal charges  (Alternative link)
Amnesty International document. States that the High Court had ruled judicial corporal punishment unconstitutional but the government was appealing against the ruling.

Amnesty International Report 1997  (Alternative link)
States that sentences of caning were imposed, often for sexual offences against children.

Amnesty International Report 1999  (Alternative link)
In 1998 the government was considering repealing the Corporal Punishment Ordinance, but this was being resisted by the semi-autonomous regime in Zanzibar. (The Amnesty reports for 2000 to 2004 inclusive do not appear to mention JCP.)

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1998
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2000
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2001
The 1998 report says that whippings were meted out by the police, even for traffic violations. The 2000 and 2001 reports refer to unofficial floggings by police in Zanzibar. None of these reports mentions the more official judicial canings ordered by the courts.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2002
This says that the Justice Minister was investigating whether to continue the practice of caning offenders, and notes that a high court sentenced a juvenile to six strokes for manslaughter.

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2003
Caning was used "occasionally" by the courts in 2003 but its use was declining, according to this. (The 2004 report merely repeats the same information.)

US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2005
This report quotes a case in Arusha where a court sentenced a businessman to 12 strokes of the cane for rape, but claims (though it cites no source) that overall the use of caning continued to decline. (The 2006 report merely repeats the same information.)

Amnesty International Report 2005   (Alternative link)
According to this, JCP was abolished on Zanzibar in August 2004, but remained in force on the mainland.

THAILAND: Prison and Reformatory CP

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

Thai Correctional System Profile  (Alternative link) [PDF]
An official paper, from as recently as 1997, stating that caning (max. 20 strokes, under medical supervision) was still on the statute book for male prisoners in Thailand who defy prison regulations, though apparently not used in practice, since the document also says there was no corporal punishment.

GITEACPOC says that CP for disciplinary breaches was banned in youth penal institutions in 2003, but it is still lawful in "observation and protection centres", remand homes and rehabilitation centres, from which we must infer that these do not count as "penal institutions".

THAILAND: School CP

Caning in schools was abolished in 2000 and reintroduced in 2002. These were rules issued by the Ministry of Education, not legislative changes.

    According to this June 2003 news item, CP remained legal if both the student and the parents agreed to it, in lieu of other punishment. It is not clear whether this meant the parent was supposed to agree separately on each individual occasion.

    However, CP was then banned entirely in 2005 by further Ministry of Education regulations, according to GITEACPOC. (It is not stated whether this applies to private as well as public schools.)

    Anecdotal evidence, such as that quoted in this April 2006 news item, suggests that CP none the less remains quite common in practice.

    See also this video clip of a recent (jocular, but real) mass schoolboy caning at a private school.

1972 Ministry of Education rules [HISTORY]
October 2000 news item on the first abolition (see above) of CP summarises the official 1972 rules for caning: maximum six strokes, cane to be no more than 7mm thick (which is rather thin as punishment canes go). The caning was supposed to be applied to "the back of the thighs", possibly either a mistranslation or a euphemism for the posterior.

External links for Thailand/School CP

TONGA: Judicial CP

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Laws of Tonga: Chapter 18: Criminal Offences   (Alternative link)
See Part IV, Section 31, for regulations, amended as recently as 1987 and seemingly still extant, about the use of whipping on male offenders. This must be carried out by the chief gaoler "in the presence of a magistrate", a provision I cannot remember seeing anywhere else before, and there is an unusual maximum of 26 strokes. The instrument is a tamarind rod for juveniles and a cat for adults, in either case to be administered to the breech.

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: Judicial CP

Adult men (but not boys under 18) may be corporally punished by the courts. Trinidad is one of the few countries in the world where judicial birching (called "whipping" in the legislation) is still in use. JCP with the cat-o'-nine tails ("flogging") is also still on the statute book. It is not entirely clear what criteria the courts use to decide which of the two implements to order, but press reports suggest that the birch is available for a wider range of offences than the cat, and that the cat is regarded as the more severe of the two.

   As in the pre-1948 UK, the cat is applied to the upper back, the birch to the bare seat. In either case, the JCP is combined with a sentence of imprisonment and is carried out in the prison. Most of the cases reported in recent years have been either for sexual offences such as rape, or for armed robbery.

   For a typical case, see this June 2006 news item, which includes a picture of a man emerging from court after being sentenced to receive 12 strokes of the birch for having sex with an underage girl.

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

Report of the Special Rapporteur
This document states (at paragraph 677) that Clyde Lewis's appeal against his 1989 whipping sentence was turned down in 1995 and he now expected to be birched.

Amnesty International Report 1997  (Alternative link)
At least nine people were sentenced to judicial corporal punishment in 1996.

Amnesty International Report 1998  (Alternative link)
Reports there were at least 7 judicial corporal punishment sentences in 1997, and several flogging or whipping sentences from previous years were thought to have been carried out.

Patterson Matthews v. Trinidad and Tobago
UN Human Rights Committee considers a Trinidad convict's complaints about prison conditions. It mentions that he was sentenced in 1985 to 20 strokes of the birch as well as 20 years in jail. The complainant himself did not raise the question of the birch sentence and it is unclear whether it had been carried out by the time of this committee session in March 1998.

Trinidad & Tobago Makes Independent Move in Judicial Realm  (Alternative link)
From the "Washington Report on the Hemisphere", July 1998. Gives some brief details of recent judicial flogging cases.

Amnesty International Report 1999   (Alternative link)
In 1998 at least three people were sentenced to judicial CP but it was unclear whether they had been whipped at the time of this report. Another prisoner was allegedly birched before his appeal against sentence had been heard.

Open letter to the Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago  (Alternative link)
From Amnesty International (Oct 2000). Welcomes the fact that no floggings had occurred up to that point in 2000, but urges the government to abolish corporal punishment altogether.

US State Department Human Rights Report for 2000
States that 5 persons were sentenced to the birch in the year under review. Also, the penalty for rape was increased from 15 strokes to 20.

Briefing for the Human Rights Committee   (Alternative link)
Another Amnesty International document, from December 2000. This states that the government had repealed the section of the Children Act that had allowed judicial whipping of children. However, another 1999 Bill sought to extend adult flogging with the cat-o-nine-tails to include certain offences of rape. The document also mentions allegations of beatings in a boys' reformatory.

Amnesty International Report 2001   (Alternative link)
No prisoners were subjected to corporal punishment in 2000, but 17 prisoners were whipped in 1999.

US State Department Human Rights Report for 2001
Reports that there were no JCP sentences handed down in 2001.

US State Department Human Rights Report for 2002
According to this, JCP for offenders under 18 was abolished by an Act of 2000. There is no mention of any sentences for adults. (The 2003, 2004 and 2005 reports say nothing further about JCP, which is surprising in view of this July 2004 appeal hearing, in which earlier birching sentences were upheld, and also these new June 2005 birching sentences.)

Amnesty International Report 2003   (Alternative link)
Mentions the case of Rangee Dolsingh, whose appeal against a sentence of 30 strokes of the birch was rejected in July 2002; Amnesty did not know whether the birching had been carried out. I seem to have no note of this case. Actually, Rangee Dolsingh is the name of a noted lawyer in T&T, indeed a former Deputy Public Prosecutor. Perhaps there are two people with that name. Or could Amnesty have got its facts mixed up?

Amnesty International Report 2004   (Alternative link)
This says that two brothers were ordered to be birched in a Dec 2003 case. It was not known whether any JCP sentences had been carried out during the year under review.

Amnesty International Report 2005   (Alternative link)
JCP remained on the statute book, but the government told Amnesty that no floggings had been carried out since 2002.

Caesar v. Trinidad and Tobago [PDF]
This was a 2005 case in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Winston Caesar was sentenced in 1991 to 20 years' hard labour and 15 strokes of the cat-o'-nine-tails for attempted rape. After losing an appeal, he was finally flogged in February 1998. The punishment is described at para. 49, where the relevant legislation is also set out. Unsurprisingly the Inter-American Court concluded that Trinidad was in breach of the American Convention on Human Rights, but Trinidad had by that time denounced the Convention.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Judicial CP

Courts in some states of the federation regularly order floggings, for women as well as men, particularly for moral offences under Islamic law such as adultery and drinking alcohol. As far as can be ascertained, the floggings are not administered in public. JCP has been abolished in Dubai but remains on the statute book in at least five of the other six Emirates.

    This Feb 2007 news item clarifies that the punishment is to be carried out "moderately and not with force or with a thick whip" and that it is not supposed to cause bleeding.

    A not altogether clear June 2006 news report suggests that the penalty is no longer to be applied for petty crimes.

    In December 2006 the law was changed so that non-Muslims could no longer be flogged.

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Imprisonment and Flogging for Marriage Across Faiths  (Alternative link)
1997 Amnesty report on a case in which a 30-year-old Christian man was sentenced to 39 lashes for marrying a Muslim woman.

Amnesty International Report 1997  (Alternative link)
Numerous references to flogging.

Amnesty International Report 1998  (Alternative link)
Confirms, as reported here already, that flogging was extended to cover traffic offences during 1997 and also reportedly to begging in at least one Emirate. Several flogging sentences are discussed.

US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 1998
US State Department Human Rights Practices Report 2000
Gives a brief description of the floggings imposed by Shari'a courts (except in Dubai).

Amnesty International Report 1999  (Alternative link)
More flogging sentences were imposed but it was not clear whether they had been carried out.

Amnesty International Report 2001   (Alternative link)
At least 18 sentences of corporal punishment were handed down in 2000, 11 of them in the Emirate of Fujairah.

Flogging  (Alternative link)
Amnesty International report (Dec 2004) about two women sentenced to flogging for becoming pregnant outside marriage.

UNITED KINGDOM: Army CP

Nineteenth-century British army punishments [HISTORY]
Details from official records of the use of the strap in informal punishments, and of the birch in military prisons after 1881.

UNITED KINGDOM: Domestic CP

Parental smacking (Brit-speak for lightly hitting small children; nearly but not quite the same thing as "spanking") has been the subject of much controversy in recent years, with various pressure groups, who maintain that children have "rights" that override parents' rights, seeking to have it outlawed altogether, despite the fact that broad public support for such a move is plainly lacking.

    The government has so far resisted these demands, and the current legal position in England and Wales (Children Act, 2004) is that "reasonable chastisement" is lawful if it does not amount to assault. This has been generally assumed to mean that it must leave no marks on the child, and to preclude the use of any implement.

    The legal situation in Scotland and Northern Ireland differs in detail, but seems in practice to have arrived at roughly the same point.

Majority of parents admit to smacking children
News item in The Times (Sep 2006) reports on a poll showing that 70% of parents would strongly resist any move to ban corporal punishment in the home. It also revealed that most parents do not understand the current legal situation.

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

GITEACPOC attempts to explain the complexities of the present legal position.

Case of A. v The United Kingdom
Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, September 1998, holding that a boy's caning by his stepfather constituted "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", contrary to the Convention.

Application No 25599/94
Uncheck "Judgments" and check "Reports" and enter 25599/94 in the "Application number" box, then press "Search" to get the Human Rights Commission's report on the above case, before it got as far as the Court. Quotes at length from the summing-up of the judge in the domestic trial at which the stepfather was acquitted of assault.

To Smack or Not to Smack?   (Alternative link)
A legal review, quite lengthy and comprehensive, of the same case.

Children (Physical Punishment)  (Alternative link)
Debate in the Scottish Parliament (February 2000) on a proposal to make it illegal for parents to spank their own children.

Other external links for UK/Domestic

UNITED KINGDOM: Judicial and Prison CP [HISTORY]

Corporal punishment by order of the courts was once fairly common in Britain. By the early 20th century its use had been reduced drastically for adult men, but it was still sometimes ordered -- using either the birch or the cat -- for robbery with violence. Only the higher courts were empowered to mete out such sentences. After the middle of the 19th century, they were always combined with a term of imprisonment, and carried out privately in prison.

    The whipping of females had been abolished in 1820 (1 Geo. IV. c. 57), and public flogging ceased in the 1830s. The public whipping briefly noted in this 1831 account must have been one of the last in London. A slightly fuller account of such a public "whipping at the cart's tail", this time in Glasgow, is given in this 1822 report.

    Juvenile JCP was very much more common; it went into a long decline after World War I but there were still well over 400 birchings as late as 1935. Unlike adult JCP, it could be ordered by ordinary local magistrates for various offences, but in practice usually for petty larceny (stealing). From about the 1870s this took the form of an immediate birching by a policeman, seen as a relatively minor punishment and a humane alternative to incarceration. The birch used was much smaller and lighter than the ones supplied to prisons for use on adults.

    In England and Wales this applied only to boys up to age 14, but in Scotland the upper age limit was 16. Also, in Scotland only, the court could specify the use of a leather tawse instead of the birch. The tawse was seen as the more severe instrument; like the birch, it was applied to the boy's bare buttocks, and remarkably the maximum penalty in Scotland was 36 strokes (for either implement), whereas in England and Wales, from the 1860s onwards, it was only 12 strokes.

    Cadogan (1938) asserts that the tawse had largely fallen into disuse by the time of its investigation and that the Scottish courts now mostly ordered only the birch.

    Both adult and juvenile JCP were abolished in 1948 in England, Wales and Scotland.

    The 1948 reform did not affect the ability of a prison's visiting justices (in England and Wales, but not in Scotland) 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. In the 1950s there had been perhaps three or four such punishments per year on average - see for instance these July 1954 press reports. Each such order had to be approved personally by the Home Secretary (interior minister of the government) in London before being carried out -- something successive Home Secretaries had been increasingly disinclined to do, much to the chagrin of the Prison Officers' Association.

    This requirement for central government approval of each individual prison flogging was not always pleasing to the Visiting Committees (the local magistrates appointed to adjudicate on such matters at each prison), who sometimes felt they should have the power to flog prisoners without higher approval, as noted in this Jan 1901 news item.

Birches and Cats-o'-nine-tails [HISTORY]
Official circular to prison governors in 1951 giving instructions on the ordering, stocking and disposal of whipping implements.

The birching of adult men for robbery with violence [HISTORY]
Research by "Diogenes" on a gradual change from cat to birch in the early 20th century.

Whip hand of the state [HISTORY]
Feature in Glasgow Herald on juvenile birching in Scotland before 1948.

Flogging triangles [HISTORY]
Official diagrams, dated 1894, showing the contraptions used in two English prisons for securing prisoners to be flogged with the cat or birch.

Corporal Punishment in Northern Ireland [HISTORY]
In considering British legal matters, the existence within the UK since 1922 of a semi-autonomous jurisdiction for the statelet ("Province") of Northern Ireland, with its own local parliament and laws, is generally overlooked. This 1956 article from a law journal reminds us that Northern Ireland did not follow the rest of the UK in abolishing JCP in 1948, and reveals that the penalty was available for a much wider range of offences than on the mainland. Little-known statistics on the incidence of CP are quoted, from which it is apparent that in practice the penalty was never actually applied in the post-war era as far as adults were concerned. It is not, however, clear that there were no juvenile birchings in the period in question.
    Corporal punishment as an internal prison disciplinary measure is also considered. Intriguingly, it turns out that the N.I. legislation provided for the use of the cane (and not only for juveniles) as an alternative to the birch and the "cat" for prison offences -- something never seen in the rest of the UK -- though it seems this was rarely if ever invoked in practice.

See also: Pictures relating to prison and judicial CP in Britain

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Punishments at the Old Bailey [HISTORY]
The Old Bailey was (still is) the main criminal court in central London. According to this, whipping sentences in the 18th century were mainly for petty larceny (stealing items valued at less than one shilling). After about 1720 these offences were more often punished by transportation. From about the same time, the court began to distinguish between public whippings (carried out in the street, traditionally while being trundled along behind a horse and cart) and private whippings (done inside the court or a jail). Private whippings increased after 1772 owing to a loss of faith in transportation.
    There is a very small reproduction of a 1670s engraving entitled "The Manner of Whipping at the Carts Tayle for petty Larceny and other Offences", and this one (right) from 1809 called "Flogging at the Old Bailey", depicting a private whipping. Public whipping ended in the 1830s.
    You can also search the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, not as its name suggests an official record but a privately published newspaper giving details of some of the more interesting trials from 1674 to 1834. If you search for cases that resulted in whipping you get 7,743 results! You can even access an image of the original page in each case. Note that the courts in those days didn't specify a number of strokes or an implement, they just said "to be whipped".

"Give him a doing": The birching of young offenders in Scotland [HISTORY]
An excellent research paper in the Canadian Journal of History (Dec 2002). Even I, who have been studying this subject for over four decades, found some new references and fresh insights here.
    The subtitle is slightly misleading: a better one would be "the birching of young offenders in the UK, with particular reference to Scotland". The legal systems were (still are) different, but the underlying cultural, social and political issues apply also to England and Wales, and most of the differences are only of degree. I am not persuaded that there was really a distinctly Scottish dimension to the debate.
    It is true that by the 1930s the courts in Scotland were ordering a lot more birchings, pro rata to the population, than their counterparts in England and Wales but, even so, Cadogan (1938) notes that there were still a non-negligible 192 cases south of the border in 1935 (for 231 in Scotland).
    The author omits to mention the differences in law between the two jurisdictions, the most important of which is that magistrates in England and Wales could not order boys over 14 to be birched, while the equivalent age in Scotland was 16. Since it is precisely boys of 14 and 15 who have generally tended through the ages to be the most behaviourally difficult, this fact alone could account for much of the difference in numbers. Two other differences were that in Scotland there was no right of appeal as there was in England and Wales; and that whereas in England and Wales magistrates could birch only for indictable offences, in Scotland the courts could birch for common-law offences as well -- in practice, for any and every offence.
    The author starts by looking at how and why juvenile birching began to come into its own in the middle of the 19th century. It has often been commented that a prime motive was the desire, humanitarian as well as pragmatic, to keep youngsters out of prison or other institutions which were, then as now, cesspits of moral turpitude and "universities of crime". (I wonder if this argument has not been overdone: it seems clear from the Old Bailey proceedings -- see previous item -- that in earlier periods there had been plenty of judicial whippings for minor offences, of children as well as adults, sometimes with imprisonment as well but often without.)
    But this paper also draws out another aspect -- the Victorian-era notion that adolescent boys were desperate above all else to think of themselves as "grown-up", that this was a key factor in their offending, and that one good way of persuading them otherwise was by giving them what was regarded as a boy's punishment. Here I think the author slightly misses the point that it is specifically birching that was thought of as boyish, not CP in general. There had always been floggings on the upper back for culprits of all ages. What made the birch distinctive was that its customers received it on their bare bottoms, as naughty schoolboys had done since Roman times.
    There is some interesting material here about the campaign waged against juvenile birching in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s by the political left, the so-called "labour movement", which liked to think of itself as representing the working classes. (Its naïve praying-in-aid of the Soviet Union, which had in theory abolished all corporal punishment, makes embarrassing reading today.) These people persuaded themselves that there was a social-class aspect to the punishment. Of course this is nonsense: you could say exactly the same about imprisonment or any other penalty. The simple fact is that the working classes supplied the vast majority of offenders. This text quotes a number of counter-examples in which real working-class parents actually pleaded with the courts to birch their sons!
    New to me was an eye-witness description of the 1937 birching of a 15-year-old watch-thief in Glasgow, which, says the author, "illustrates the medico-scientific nature of rationally calculated punishment". She attributes this passage to Cadogan, page 215, but must have got her footnotes muddled up; it is nowhere to be found in Cadogan, which, moreover, does not have a page 215. Since it gives an unusually thorough account of the modus operandi, I quote the paragraph here:

"The boy was medically examined ... particular attention was paid to the condition of the heart, the stomach and the pelvis ... While the doctor recorded his findings in a book ... noting the exact time, the boy, already stripped to his undervest and trousers, was made to lie face downwards on a table similar to the couch in a doctor's surgery, but slightly shaped to receive comfortably the shape of the body. Stretched out to the fullest, held by two men, one grasping his hands, the other his feet, the boy was about 3 feet from the floor. The last act of the executioner before administering the rod was to bare the buttocks. The vest was raised to just below the kidneys, the trousers pulled down to the thighs. Standing at a distance of about 4 feet from the table, the bircher ... raised the rod just beyond his head, administered the punishment in a slow measured fashion, allowing about 2 seconds between each blow ... The rod... raised no welts and it was noted that the boy, until the fourth blow gave but little gasps after each stroke and squirmed, but from then onwards he howled."

At a Newgate Flogging [HISTORY]
From In Strange Company by James Greenwood (1874). He gives a detailed eyewitness account of the flogging with the cat of a garrotter (robber with violence) in Newgate Prison, London. Evidently accredited reporters were allowed to witness these events in those days, which I think was not the case by the turn of the twentieth century. See also, for instance, this 1867 news item.

Whipping [HISTORY]
Entry in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Some 18th-century examples of judicial CP are mentioned. It seems rather odd that a publication in 1911 gave the impression that judicial CP was already something confined to the fairly distant past. In fact, it was still in regular use at the time, albeit mostly only for juvenile offenders, whose punishments were legally called "whippings" even though the instrument used was in fact the birch. Also, the last line is mistaken in stating that the whipping of females in the UK was abolished in 1791. My information is that this took place in 1820 -- see these 1822 news items (and see also next item).

Corporal punishment [HISTORY]
Another entry in the 1911 Britannica (see above). This one confirms that the whipping of women was absolutely prohibited in an Act of 1820. Also summarises the legal situation as at 1911 for JCP in England and Wales.

Rockin' the boat [HISTORY]
This article in the London Guardian (May 2002) looks back to the demands in the early 1950s for the restoration of the then recently-abolished birch in the face of what seemed at the time like a crime wave. But these things are all relative, and nowadays the 1950s are thought of as a golden era of unimaginable peace and order.

Criminal Justice Bill, Standing Committee B, 14 February 1961
House of Commons committee debate on an unsuccessful clause to introduce JCP for offenders under 21. This includes a long speech by Mrs Margaret Thatcher, then a mere backbencher. She supported the clause, on balance. (She had abandoned this idea, I think on practical grounds rather than on principle, by the time she became Prime Minister 18 years later.)

Corporal Punishment (Re-introduction) [HISTORY]
Parliament debate (June 1995) in which Warren Hawksley MP made his third unsuccessful attempt to introduce legislation to restore judicial CP.

New Clause 14: Corporal punishment [HISTORY]
Another debate in Parliament, this time in January 1997, with Tony Marlow MP taking over as spokesman for the bring-back-flogging cause. The debate continues over several pages (click on "Next section" at the bottom of each page).

Other external links for UK/Judicial CP

UNITED KINGDOM: Reformatory CP [HISTORY]

Corporal punishment was used in varying degrees and in different ways in Britain's various sorts of young offenders' institutions. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, "Industrial schools" and "Reformatory schools" and "Training schools" were allowed to birch their inmates until the early 1920s, when under government pressure the cane (or in Scotland, the tawse) became standard.

    In 1933 these all became "Approved Schools", to which the courts could send errant teenagers. Central government laid down rules under which they could cane or tawse both male and female residents. Different rules applied to Remand Homes and Children's Homes.

    CP in all these and similar establishments was ended in the 1980s.

    There were also Borstals, for older and more serious offenders. These were prisons for young men. Contrary to popular myth, there was officially no corporal punishment here except birching in rare cases of extreme violence against an officer.

    For more details and links to relevant rules, reports and other documents, see this separate page.

UNITED KINGDOM: Royal Navy CP

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, Part I: 1780-1860 [HISTORY] (illustrated)
First part of a multi-part feature article on the flogging of boy seamen.

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, Part II: The 1860s Ryder reforms [HISTORY] (illustrated)

Extracts from 19th-century ships' logbooks [HISTORY]
Sample entries recording public floggings of young sailors.

Extracts from evidence at a 1861 Court Martial [HISTORY]
Excessive canings of boy seamen described.

Extracts from Queen's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions 1879 [HISTORY]
Official rules for the birching and caning of boys in the Royal Navy.

Extracts from Ship's Logs - HMS Victory 1867/8 [HISTORY]
Records of the first birchings of boys after the birch replaced the cat.

Royal Navy - Glossary [HISTORY]
Some technical terms explained.

Caning of Royal Navy Boys in the 1920s [HISTORY]
A 1931 internal government report discusses the frequency of corporal punishment for boy seamen under training, and whether it was being used excessively. Quotes the regulations in force at the time.

Statistical table [HISTORY]
Appendix to the above report, setting out figures for the incidence of caning in different ships and training establishments.

Report of a Court Martial [HISTORY]
Details of the punishment of a boy seaman in 1813.

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

Kings Regulations and Admiralty Instructions [HISTORY]
Here are the UK Royal Navy's regulations in their 1913 version (cf. the 1879 version). Scroll down to the second table of summary punishments and also to paragraph 760 to see that corporal punishment in the form of lashes (with the cat) was still theoretically lawful for mutiny, but, as explained in the footnote, this punishment had in practice been suspended (and it was never to be restored).
    The birching of boys on the bare breech (see paragraph 799) had also been suspended, in 1906; it was to be reintroduced a few years later, but only by court martial (and only for homosexual behaviour), not for use as a summary punishment.
    "Caning on the breech with clothes on" (max. 12 cuts) was, however, still available as a summary punishment for sailors under 18 -- see row 19 of the table and paragraph 799 -- and, as we know from other sources, was still in frequent use at this period.

Other external links for Naval CP

UNITED KINGDOM: School CP [HISTORY]

Corporal punishment in state schools, and also in private schools receiving any public funding, was abolished by legislation in 1987. In the remaining private schools it was banned in 1999 in England and Wales, and slightly later in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    For details of caning, slippering, spanking and tawsing in British schools, together with many links for further information, opinions and legal developments, please see the new article on this separate page.

UNITED STATES: Domestic CP

The legal situation covering domestic (family/parental) corporal punishment varies from state to state. There seems to be a perception in some quarters that parents are not allowed to spank their children any more, but generally this is not true, except arguably in Minnesota (see links below).

    A recent legislative attempt to outlaw parental spanking in Massachusetts (with video clips) was met with widespread derision, and duly failed.

Corporal punishment not necessarily abuse
News item (Nov 2006) about a case in the North Carolina Court of Appeals. The court held that spanking a child does not constitute abuse as long as it does not cause serious physical injury. This ruling overturns a district court finding against a father whose 13-year-old son had a bruise on his bottom. In other words, a bruise is not an injury.

The Judge and the belt
News report (Aug 2007) of a hearing in Ohio where a judge threw out a charge of excessive punishment against a father whose belting left marks (pictured) on his son's back.

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

United States Spanking Laws
A summary for each State of the legal position of parental spanking, provided by the anti-CP "Center for Effective Discipline".

Parents' Rights to Discipline in California
Note by the Pacific Justice Institute on California law covering parental spanking.

Donald R. Cobble Jr v Commissioner of the Department of Social Services
Text of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision (1999) that strapping one's son on his bottom does not constitute abuse. For more on this case see this September 1999 news item and its follows-up.

Other external links for USA/Domestic

UNITED STATES: Judicial CP

Many states had JCP on their statute books in early times, typically consisting of a public flogging at a special whipping post. This recent newspaper article purports to describe the last whipping in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1839, though no source is cited.

    In Virginia, one of the last persons to be whipped by court order was a black woman in 1880, according to this report, which notes that the penalty was abolished by the state legislature two years later. Efforts to revive Virginia's "whipping post" in the 1890s were all defeated.

    The last state to use this kind of punishment was Delaware, which did not formally abolish judicial whipping until 1972, though the last such event took place in 1952: see this illustrated book review.

    However, there have also been many cases where local judges have ordered young offenders to be paddled or spanked immediately in the court premises, either by a relative or by a court official. I have yet to find any mention of formal legislative provision for this in any state; it has usually been presented as an informal alternative to incarceration, or made a condition of probation. Some sample cases for which we have a record are:

- 1910 in New York - Mother made to whip 15-year-old;
- 1918 in New York - Four boys spanked by Children's Court;
- 1921 in Missouri - Judge spanks 4 truant schoolboys with shoe;
- 1925 in Pennsylvania - Two boys, 14, get strapped by respective fathers;
- 1931 in Washington State - Four young thieves lashed by probation officer;
- 1936 in Pennsylvania - 17 boy vandals belted by respective parents;
- 1962 in Indiana - Three delinquent youths, 16 and 17, spanked in open court by officials;
- 1963 in Indiana - Youth, 19, punished by father with razor strop in judge's chambers;
- 1968 in Oklahoma - Boy, 16, takes whipping in jury room to avoid prison term;
- 1995 in S. Carolina - Judge has youth, 18, whipped on bare seat in his office by grandmother;
- 1997 in Nevada - Judge orders mother to spank son, 12, in open court;
- 2001 in Texas - Foster parent ordered to paddle 11-year-old in courtroom.

Of the above, the Oklahoma (1968) and Texas (2001) cases are the only ones yet found in which the legality of the punishment was subsequently called into question. See also this March 2003 article about "the spanking judge of Galveston County" in Texas.

Early treatment of child offenders [HISTORY]
An act respecting crimes and punishments (Illinois, 1819). This provided for "children or servants" to be whipped by justices of the peace (max. 10 "stripes") if they assaulted their parents or masters.

House Bill 1324 [HISTORY]
The full text of the 1996 unsuccessful attempt in New Hampshire to introduce public spanking on the bare buttocks as a judicial punishment for vandalism.

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

State v. Martin (2006) [PDF]
Court of Appeals ruling in the "Ohio paddling cop" case. See this Nov 2006 news item and these still pictures of one of the spankings in question.

In the Matter of John Lloyd Swarts, III
Kansas Supreme Court case (2001) about the County Attorney who kept a large paddle (inevitably inscribed "Board of Education") in his office for use on delinquent youths in lieu of bringing formal proceedings.

Mississippi House Bill 381 [HISTORY]
A 1997 Bill (which died in committee) to introduce judicial caning as a punishment for burning churches.

An Introduction to the Justice System in Colonial Virginia [HISTORY]
Eighteenth-century Virginia inherited the harshness of the English common law. For stealing a hog, first offenders would receive 25 lashes at the whipping post. Children were whipped too.

House Bill No 2458 [HISTORY]
Text of a failed attempt in the Texas legislature (1995) to call for a report on the effectiveness of judicial caning.

United States v. Barnett [HISTORY]
1964 case in the Supreme Court about racial integration, interesting for its detail about 17th-century judicial whippings in Massachusetts.

Bill Number AB7 [HISTORY]
Full text of the failed 1994 California Bill to introduce judicial paddling for vandals.

UNITED STATES: Prison CP

Benson (1937) records that prison punishment with a strap was in use in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Prison Methods in New York State [HISTORY]
Extract from a book describing in detail the use of corporal punishment as prison discipline in the 1880s. See also this 1894 news item about controversy over paddlings in Elmira Reformatory.

Parchman Farm, Mississippi [HISTORY]
Details of "Black Annie", the strap used at this prison farm well into the 20th century.

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

State of Arkansas, Board of Corrections: Corporal punishment [PDF]
Regulation abolishing CP. This dates from 1979, but floggings with the strap had ceased in 1968.

Rusk Penitentiary [HISTORY]
History of a prison in Texas which closed in 1917. There is a quotation from the regulations governing use of the leather strap for punishing inmates, including its dimensions.

UNITED STATES: Reformatory CP

Indiana Boys' School, Plainfield, 1970 [HISTORY]
First-person account of bare-bottom strapping, abolished in 1966 but reintroduced in 1969.

Boys' Industrial School, Lancaster, Ohio [HISTORY]
A description of the punishment regime in 1931.

For a photograph of the strap used in this same institution 25 years later, see The Archive.

The Osborne Association [HISTORY]
Detailed reports on the disciplinary system in boys' reformatories between 1938 and 1943. There are now six reformatories covered here.

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

Wisconsin Industrial School for Boys [HISTORY]
History of this institution quotes a rule that no corporal punishment shall be administered except by the Superintendent or by his express instruction.

Juvenile Delinquency [HISTORY]
Scroll down to "The Refuge Movement" for various passing references to CP in this long collection of 19th-century documents. The New York House of Refuge was expressly authorized to apply "stripes" in cases of serious disobedience, whereas at the equivalent institution in Boston, CP was forbidden.

Tennessee: Standards for residential child caring agencies (1999) [PDF]
Provides that corporal punishment is permitted in youth homes, but only with consent of parent or guardian.

UNITED STATES: School CP

Many people, even within the USA, think corporal punishment (paddling or spanking) has long disappeared from American public schools. This is not so.

    Corporal punishment remains lawful in US schools, following a Supreme Court decision in 1979, except where it has been banned at district or state level. Slightly over half the states have banned it. Paddling continues to be deployed to a greater or lesser extent in several southern states.

    For a full illustrated overview, with many internal and external links to relevant data and documents, see this separate page.

ZAMBIA: Judicial, prison and reformatory CP

Caning sentences for juveniles were routine in the 1960s (when the country was called "Northern Rhodesia"), for Africans as in these May 1960 court cases but sometimes also for "Europeans" (i.e. white boys), as in this June 1960 case. Magistrates were still ordering canings for teenage boy offenders in August 1996.

    Benson (1937) says that in 1935 there were 256 canings ordered by the courts in Northern Rhodesia, 229 of which were for juveniles. In addition, 210 adults were caned for internal prison offences.

    A November 2003 news report said that Parliament had repealed earlier JCP provisions, following a Supreme Court judgment in 1999 holding all corporal punishment to be unconstitutional. However, GITEACPOC says that JCP is still on the statute book for juveniles, though presumably no longer invoked.

Zambia: Criminal Law and the Penal Code [HISTORY]
Extracts from a description of the judicial system as it was in the 1970s.

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

Laws of the Republic of Zambia, 1995 edition, Volume 4 [PDF] [HISTORY]
At page 19, Chapter 29 (Local Courts Act), para 43 gave local courts the power to cane boys under 21 convicted of any offence, up to 12 strokes, in lieu of imprisoning them.
    At page 36, the Local Courts Rules clarified at para 4(iii) that a lesser ("Grade B") local court may order only six strokes of the cane. Para 15 (page 39) stipulated that the caning should preferably be carried out in the presence of a medical officer, and at any rate not in public.
    Also on page 39, para 17 sets out in detail the provisions for the modus operandi of the caning procedure. These are more or less identical to those set out in the Prisons Rules (see volume 7 below), except that instead of the "small square of calico" to be dipped in water and wrung out and tied over the target area, a "piece of thin cotton cloth" soaked in water and wrung out shall be "kept spread" over the boy's otherwise bare buttocks during his caning. The rattan used was to be 92 cm long and 1 cm thick for a juvenile (under 19), and 1.2 m long and 12.5 mm thick for a "juvenile adult" (over 19 but under 21).
    At pages 73/74 is set out the warrant that had to be filled in when a boy was sentenced to JCP, from which it appears that if the offender was over 18 he was to be taken to a specified prison to be caned there, but if under 18 he was dealt with in the local lock-up.

Laws of the Republic of Zambia, 1995 edition, Volume 5 [PDF] [HISTORY]
At page 115/6, Chapter 53 (Juveniles Act), para 73 empowered any court to sentence a juvenile (defined at page 88 as being under the age of 19) to be caned.
    At page 138, the Approved School Rules, para 12(3) laid down rules more or less identical to the UK equivalent, viz. that a boy under 15 could be caned on the hands, and boys of any age could be caned on the posterior over ordinary cloth trousers, max. six strokes under age 15 and 8 strokes over that age, but with the proviso that 12 strokes could be given with the special approval of the Commissioner. The caning had to be inflicted by the Principal, and not in the presence of other boys.
    At page 159, the Reformatory Schools Rules, para 53 empowered a visiting justice or a senior officer of the Zambia Prison Service to award up to ten strokes of whipping with a light cane for serious offences committed within the reformatory, but the award had to be confirmed by the Minister (para 58) in the case of a caning of more than five strokes. The cane had to be not more than 835 mm long and 9.38 mm thick. The medical officer was required to be present and to satisfy himself that the inmate was fit to undergo the punishment, the details of which had to be entered in the "caning book".

Laws of the Republic of Zambia, 1995 edition, Volume 7 [PDF] [HISTORY]
At page 33, Chapter 87 (Penal Code), para 27 laid down that a court might sentence a male under 19 to up to 12 strokes of the cane, and a person aged 19 or over to 24 strokes. Those aged under 21 might be caned for any offence for which the penalty would otherwise be 3 months' imprisonment or more; adult men could be caned for various specific offences including rape, burglary, inflicting grievous harm, and robbery. A medical officer was to be present whenever practicable, and had to be present for any caning of more than 12 strokes; the M.O. was empowered to stop the caning if he considered that the convicted person was not in a fit state to undergo the remainder of the punishment. Caning sentences were not to be carried out in instalments.
    At page 297, Chapter 88 (Criminal Procedure Code), para 330 stipulated that a sentence of CP should not be carried out until the time limit for appealing had expired, except in the case of offenders aged under 19, who could be caned forthwith, which I take to mean that any appeal had to be entered immediately the court sentence was announced. This section also provided that the parent or guardian of the under-19-year-old was entitled to be present at his caning, "if he can be found and resides within a reasonable distance".
    At page 677, Chapter 97 (Prisons Act), para 33 empowered the courts to sentence a prison officer who mutinied to up to 12 strokes of the cane. And at page 700 ff., para 94 and paras 98 to 105 laid down the rules for the caning of prisoners found guilty of major offences within the prison such as mutiny or assaulting a prison officer. Only a male prisoner under the age of 45 might be so punished, the maximum number of strokes being 12 if he was over 16, and six for a boy under that age.
    At page 760 ff, Prisons Rules, paras 172 to 175 gave more detailed instructions for the carrying into effect of caning sentences. The cane was to be of rattan, 3 ft long and 3/8 inch thick for boys under 19, and 4ft long and half an inch thick in the case of offenders over that age. A small square of calico was to be dipped in water, wrung out and tied over the prisoner's buttocks. The strokes were to be administered upon the buttocks from one side, and on no account on the back; the small of the back, above the buttocks, was to be protected with a blanket. No other prisoners were allowed to be present during the caning.

ZIMBABWE: Judicial CP

Judicial caning used to be commonplace in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia, before that Southern Rhodesia). It is now available to the courts only for juveniles, which means boys under 18 (for a wide range of offences), and they continue to make use of this power. It seems to be up to the court who is to administer the punishment: in this report of a March 2006 court case it is specified that the caning was to be delivered by "an experienced designated member of the police force", but in this May 2006 case the young offender was to be taken to the Harare Central Prison to receive his punishment.

Aspects of Punishment [HISTORY]
Part of a talk to a magistrates' seminar in Rhodesia (as it was then) in 1964. What offences should they impose caning for? Should there be a minimum or maximum number of strokes? Is it right to order a second caning for a repeat offender? The speaker presents views of prison officers and others.

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

S v Juvenile: Constitutionality of sentences of corporal punishment imposed upon juveniles
Summary of a 1989 case in which the majority of the court held that judicial caning was "brutal and cruel" and hence unconstitutional. Subsequently, the government changed the law to make juvenile JCP permissible again. (See next item.)

Section 15: Protection from inhuman treatment
Extract from the Constitution of Zimbabwe, including subsection 15(3) inserted by s.5 of Act 30 of 1990. This stipulates that moderate corporal punishment inflicted on a male person under 18 by order of a court shall not be held to constitute inhuman or degrading punishment.

ZIMBABWE: School CP

Contrary to what is stated on several other websites, school CP has not been abolished in Zimbabwe. Hearsay evidence suggests that caning is quite common in some schools. In all likelihood, they have inherited a British schoolboy CP tradition from before the country became independent.

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

I have found only two schools in Zimbabwe which say on their websites that they use CP.

Punishment for Misdemeanours in Zimbabwean Schools: Recommendations of Sixth Formers
Abstract of a study (1995) which found, among other things, that caning was equally acceptable for boys in "Group A" (formerly whites-only) and "Group B" (formerly black) schools.

GITEACPOC states that CP is lawful in schools in Zimbabwe, but only for boys. Under a 1993 circular, it should be given on the buttocks with a light cane.

Child abuse by teachers in Zimbabwe
Yet another "study" that puts caning on a par with physical and sexual abuse. Alleges that some girls have been caned even though CP is legal only for boys.

Education, Education, Education
A British teacher arriving at a Zimbabwe state school was "horrified" to discover CP being used, but within a couple of months she discovered how well caning works on boys.

Values Education as an alternative to corporal punishment
Says that CP is still quite lawful, supported by the government and practised in many schools, especially boys' schools.

Other external links for Zimbabwe/Schools