Judicial corporal punishment
Encyclopedia
Judicial corporal punishment (JCP) refers to the infliction of corporal punishment
as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging
, caning
, birching
, whipping
, or strapping
. The practice was once commonplace in many countries, but it has now been abolished in most Western countries, but remains an acceptable legal punishment in some Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries. These are mostly either former British colonies (now members of the Commonwealth
) such as Malaysia, Singapore
and Tanzania
, or Muslim countries with a system of Islamic (Sharia
) law.
says that it has become a knee jerk reaction, rather than a considered view, to reject all forms of judicial corporal punishment in the United States. Moskos says that most people immediately assume flogging is inhumane. He thus attempts to make a case, which he says "is meant to be provocative", that prison may be worse.
Moskos makes the simplest version of his argument by proposing a thought experiment
: if you were sentenced to one year in jail, but were given the option of receiving two lashes under medical supervision, would you take that option? He contends that many people would. Moskos, an assistant professor of law (and former police officer) maintains that we therefore ought to offer that option to criminals, considering we would choose that option for ourselves. He challenges "Now, flogging may be too harsh, or it may be too soft, but it really can't be both."
In his book "In Defense of Flogging", Moskos describes studies showing that higher rates of incarceration
have little effect on decreasing crime. This is presumably critical information in the United States, where the incarceration rate is five times the world's average - especially inappropriate, considering most criminals are not the kinds who will need to be kept out of society for the rest of their lives. Gone too, says Moskos, are the days where "cure" and rehabilitation were the focus; today, most criminals are expected to simply improve in prison, despite the fact that their time is spent in a harsh and violent environment with other criminals.
Moskos thus argues that prisons in the United States incarcerate unnecessarily, and have proven to be failures in matters of both deterrence
and rehabilitation
. A reviewer for The Economist
writes, about Moskos's book, that "Perhaps the most damning evidence of the broken American prison system is that it makes a proposal to reinstate flogging appear almost reasonable. Almost."
became much discussed around the world in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay
was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for vandalism. Since that time, the number of caning sentences handed down each year in Singapore has doubled.
Other ex-British territories with judicial caning currently on their statute books include Barbados
, Botswana
, Brunei
, Swaziland
, Tonga
, Trinidad & Tobago, and Zimbabwe
. It has been abolished in recent decades in Hong Kong, the Isle of Man
, Jamaica
, Kenya
, South Africa, Sri Lanka
, and Zambia
.
In the United Kingdom itself, JCP generally was abolished in 1948; however, it persisted in prisons as a punishment for breach of discpline until it was abolished by s 65 (Abolition of corporal punishment in prison) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. It was abolished in the Isle of Man after the judgment in Tyrer v. UK by the European Court of Human Rights
; It was removed from the statute book in Canada in 1972, in India in the 1950s, in New Zealand in 1941, and in Australia at various times in the 20th century according to State.
Many countries with an Islamic legal system, such as Iran
, northern Nigeria
, Saudi Arabia
, Sudan
and Yemen
employ judicial whipping or caning for a range of offences. In Indonesia
(Aceh
province only) it has recently been introduced for the first time.
Other countries that were neither British nor Islamic that have used JCP in the more distant past include China, Germany, Korea, Sweden and Vietnam
.
In the United States it was last used in 1952 in Delaware
.
The above list does not include countries where a "blind eye" is sometimes turned to unofficial JCP by local tribes, authorities, etc. including Bangladesh
, and Colombia
.
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging
Flagellation
Flagellation or flogging is the act of methodically beating or whipping the human body. Specialised implements for it include rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails and the sjambok...
, caning
Caning
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks or hand . Application of a cane to the knuckles or the shoulders has been much less common...
, birching
Birching
Birching is a corporal punishment with a birch rod, typically applied to the recipient's bare buttocks, although occasionally to the back and/or shoulders.-Implement:...
, whipping
Flagellation
Flagellation or flogging is the act of methodically beating or whipping the human body. Specialised implements for it include rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails and the sjambok...
, or strapping
Strapping (punishment)
Strapping refers to the use of a strap as an implement of corporal punishment. It is typically a broad and heavy strip of leather, often with a hard handle, the more flexible 'blade' being applied to the offender....
. The practice was once commonplace in many countries, but it has now been abolished in most Western countries, but remains an acceptable legal punishment in some Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries. These are mostly either former British colonies (now members of the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
) such as Malaysia, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, or Muslim countries with a system of Islamic (Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
) law.
Arguments for JCP
Peter MoskosPeter Moskos
Peter Moskos is a former Baltimore Police Department officer who is currently an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center in the Department of Sociology...
says that it has become a knee jerk reaction, rather than a considered view, to reject all forms of judicial corporal punishment in the United States. Moskos says that most people immediately assume flogging is inhumane. He thus attempts to make a case, which he says "is meant to be provocative", that prison may be worse.
Moskos makes the simplest version of his argument by proposing a thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
: if you were sentenced to one year in jail, but were given the option of receiving two lashes under medical supervision, would you take that option? He contends that many people would. Moskos, an assistant professor of law (and former police officer) maintains that we therefore ought to offer that option to criminals, considering we would choose that option for ourselves. He challenges "Now, flogging may be too harsh, or it may be too soft, but it really can't be both."
In his book "In Defense of Flogging", Moskos describes studies showing that higher rates of incarceration
Incarceration
Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...
have little effect on decreasing crime. This is presumably critical information in the United States, where the incarceration rate is five times the world's average - especially inappropriate, considering most criminals are not the kinds who will need to be kept out of society for the rest of their lives. Gone too, says Moskos, are the days where "cure" and rehabilitation were the focus; today, most criminals are expected to simply improve in prison, despite the fact that their time is spent in a harsh and violent environment with other criminals.
Moskos thus argues that prisons in the United States incarcerate unnecessarily, and have proven to be failures in matters of both deterrence
Deterrence (legal)
Deterrence is the use of punishment as a threat to deter people from committing a crime. Deterrence is often contrasted with retributivism, which holds that punishment is a necessary consequence of a crime and should be calculated based on the gravity of the wrong done.- Categories :Deterrence can...
and rehabilitation
Rehabilitation (penology)
Rehabilitation means; To restore to useful life, as through therapy and education or To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity....
. A reviewer for The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
writes, about Moskos's book, that "Perhaps the most damning evidence of the broken American prison system is that it makes a proposal to reinstate flogging appear almost reasonable. Almost."
Countries where JCP is used
The Singaporean official punishment of caningCaning in Singapore
Caning is a widely used form of legal corporal punishment in Singapore. It can be divided into several contexts: judicial, military, school, reformatory/prison, and domestic/private....
became much discussed around the world in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay
Michael P. Fay
Michael Peter Fay is an American who briefly shot to international notoriety when he was sentenced to caning in Singapore as an 18-year-old in 1994 for theft and vandalism...
was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for vandalism. Since that time, the number of caning sentences handed down each year in Singapore has doubled.
Other ex-British territories with judicial caning currently on their statute books include Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, Botswana
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
, Brunei
Brunei
Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
, Swaziland
Swaziland
Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...
, Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
, Trinidad & Tobago, and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
. It has been abolished in recent decades in Hong Kong, the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, South Africa, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, and Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
.
In the United Kingdom itself, JCP generally was abolished in 1948; however, it persisted in prisons as a punishment for breach of discpline until it was abolished by s 65 (Abolition of corporal punishment in prison) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. It was abolished in the Isle of Man after the judgment in Tyrer v. UK by the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
; It was removed from the statute book in Canada in 1972, in India in the 1950s, in New Zealand in 1941, and in Australia at various times in the 20th century according to State.
Many countries with an Islamic legal system, such as Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, northern Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
and Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
employ judicial whipping or caning for a range of offences. In Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
(Aceh
Aceh
Aceh is a special region of Indonesia, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Its full name is Daerah Istimewa Aceh , Nanggroë Aceh Darussalam and Aceh . Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin...
province only) it has recently been introduced for the first time.
Other countries that were neither British nor Islamic that have used JCP in the more distant past include China, Germany, Korea, Sweden and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
.
In the United States it was last used in 1952 in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
.
Full list of countries
A list of 33 countries that use lawful, official JCP today is as follows:-
Afghanistan (men and women - whip or cane, no target specified; public or private) see Judicial Corporal Punishment in AfghanistanJudicial corporal punishment in AfghanistanJudicial corporal punishment in Afghanistan is legal and widely applied. Afghanistan currently uses Sharia code of law, which calls for different types of corporal punishment. This includes public floggings, amputations of body parts, chemical blinding of the eyes, or even eye gorging. Corporal... -
Antigua and Barbuda (boys only - details unclear) -
The Bahamas (men - cat on bare back; boys - cane on bare buttocks; in private) -
Barbados (boys only - details unclear) -
Botswana (males aged 14 to 40 - cane on bare buttocks; in private) -
Brunei (men and boys - cane on bare buttocks; in private) -
Dominica (boys under 16 - details unclear) -
Grenada (men and boys - details unclear) -
Ecuador (men and women - traditional indigenous justice) -
Guyana (men and boys - details unclear) -
Indonesia, Aceh StateAcehAceh is a special region of Indonesia, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Its full name is Daerah Istimewa Aceh , Nanggroë Aceh Darussalam and Aceh . Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin...
only (men and women - cane on clothed back; in public) -
Iran (men, women, boys, girls - whip or strap, no target specified; public or private) -
Lesotho (men and boys - details unclear) -
Malaysia (Criminal law: men and boys - cane on bare buttocks; in private). See Caning in MalaysiaCaning in MalaysiaCaning is form of corporal punishment used in Malaysia. Judicial caning, ordered as part of a criminal sentence imposed by a civil court on a male offender, is the most severe form of caning used in Malaysia and is always combined with a prison sentence for adult offenders.A much less severe form...
. * (Sharia law, Muslims only: men and women - cane on clothed back; in private) -
Maldives (men and women - details unclear) -
Nigeria (men, women, boys, girls - cane on clothed buttocks or whip on bare back; in public. Used only in northern states) -
Pakistan (men and boys - cane or strap on clothed buttocks; public or private) -
Qatar (men and women - details unclear; in private) -
Saint Kitts and Nevis (boys and men - details unclear) -
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (boys only - cane on bare buttocks) -
Saudi Arabia (men and women - whip or cane over clothes, no target specified; public or private) -
Sierra Leone (boys only - cane or birch on bare buttocks) -
Singapore (men and boys - cane on bare buttocks; in private). See Caning in SingaporeCaning in SingaporeCaning is a widely used form of legal corporal punishment in Singapore. It can be divided into several contexts: judicial, military, school, reformatory/prison, and domestic/private....
. -
Somalia (men and women - cane on clothed buttocks) -
Sudan (men, women, boys, girls - whip on clothed back) -
Swaziland (boys only - cane on bare buttocks) -
Tanzania (men and boys - cane on bare buttocks; in private) -
Tonga (men - cat on bare buttocks; boys - birch or cat on bare buttocks) -
Trinidad and Tobago (men only - cat on bare back or birch on bare buttocks; in private) -
Tuvalu (details unclear) -
United Arab Emirates (Muslims only: men - whip on bare back; women - whip on clothed back; public or private) -
Yemen (details unclear) -
Zimbabwe (boys only - cane on bare buttocks; in private)
The above list does not include countries where a "blind eye" is sometimes turned to unofficial JCP by local tribes, authorities, etc. including Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, and Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
.