Corporal Punishment in the Public School System and Our Nation’s Crime Rates

All states will have crime but not all states allow corporal punishment in the public school system, currently twenty states have not prohibited the use of corporal punishment in the United States. Corporal Punishment has many definitions one is defined as physical punishment to the body; with children it is generally a spanking with a paddle on the buttocks, another definition “Is the infliction of physical pain in response to wrongdoing, typically by methodically striking a particular part of the offender’s body with an implement such as a paddle, or with the open hand. Its purpose is to correct reform and deter the miscreant and to deter others from similar misconduct”. (Conservapedia-Corporal Punishment) If a person were to learn right from wrong at an early age and have a healthy respect for authority figures and fear the consequences for their actions society would be different.

This does start in the home when the child is young and how they are disciplined in the public school system. Children seem to have little respect these days and the school systems are over run with unruly adolescence that grow into disrespectful adults. The crime rates go up and down every year and yet does anyone wonder if it is because children were not punished in the schools with corporal punishment and now they are a grown generation of reckless wild teens that turn into society’s undesirables. The point I am making is the connection between the lack of corporal punishment in the public school system and the climbing crime rates within our nation.

Out of the 88% that oppose corporal punishment their crime rates are significantly higher than those states do. (2010 Crime State Rankings) Does this mean there could be a connection between using the paddle and not using the paddle? The remaining 12% that use corporal punishment only have three states listed in the top twenty-five. Their crime rates are significantly lower than those who do not practice corporal punishment. Could this be because these criminals started out as children that did not have a fear of the consequences for their actions? Did the bad choices start as children, then progress into even worse choices as teenagers or were they older people in society in those states? The 12% that use corporal punishment, statistics show they have lower crime rates; therefore this proves by statistics that corporal punishment is deterring socially unacceptable behavior. This substantiates my claim that corporal punishment is beneficial in the public school system. These figures are hard to ignore do they mean, that if an authority figure so chooses to implement corporal punishment on the next generation they will grow up less likely to be criminal’s?

It makes one wonder how far does this go up in the chain of society? Do the welfare and state programs feel the crunch of the criminal minds that have been produced by these states? Speculation or fact this is a very touchy yet stimulating topic. These statistics are correct, and the states that don’t practice it should start immediately to stop the flow of crime that results because of behavioral modifications. We know crime is a part of every society and has always been. We punish criminals for their crimes because society could not exist without crime. “Crime implies not only that the way remains open to necessary changes but that in certain cases it directly prepares these changes.” (Benokraitis.) Society learns and changes from criminals and their crimes. “According to Athenian law, Socrates was a criminal.” (Benokraitis.) “However, his crime, namely, the independence of his thought, rendered a service not only to humanity but to his country.” (Benokraitis.) Today in time laws have changed because of this crime. This supports the facts I have presented that corporal punishment will lower crime rates, but will never eliminate crime.

The law now protects society’s independence of thought with freedom of speech. How many other things have changed to better society because of a crime committed? There is a balance that has been kept in society throughout history. Crime has helped keep this balance and helped society evolve. Society has always punished people for crimes. We have learned from those crimes committed and created laws to protect. Some crimes committed throughout history have actually given society freedoms and without those crimes we would not have had basis to change. Crime is now defined on a variety of levels and severities. Crime equals change in society sometimes for the good sometimes for the bad, but either way it shapes society.

Today’s public school systems seem to conform to society’s changes on corporal punishment. The parents don’t want other authority figures in their children’s daily life using corporal punishment on them, since it is not used on them at home. So in the United States thirty states passed laws to ban corporal punishment in the public school systems. In the remaining twenty states some public school systems require filed written documentation from the school system signed by the parents or guardian for permission before the paddling can be administered. Corporal punishment is important in the public school system because children these days do not have a fear of authority or a healthy respect for it. Therefore making the public school system full of unruly disrespectful students, this makes it harder for the teacher to teach the students and control the class rooms.

The students seem to run the place and teachers can’t really reprimand them with a good ole fashion spanking. That’s when the public school systems began its downward spiral, by this statement I mean the students have nothing to fear at school where severe punishment was concerned. This makes it hard for the teacher to gain control and keep it, in what is supposed to be their domain, their classroom. The APA (American Psychological Association) stated “That corporal punishment is violent and unnecessary, may lower self-esteem, and is liable to instill hostility and rage without reducing the undesired behavior.” “The APA also claims that corporal punishment is likely to train children to use physical violence”. (Wikipedia- Corporal Punishment). Due to the rise in child abuse it is believed that corporal punishment is borderline abuse against the child.

Now let us look back deep into our societal history exploring specifically the historical records that hold the key to such great generations as the baby boomers. We will surely find that dropout rates are lower and graduation rates are higher. To me, this in itself says “Hey whip the child for misbehaving”. In the end as they have grown we see that crime is deterred, no shootings in the schools and a better fit into the social puzzle. Sigmond Freud would be slapping himself in the face at the practices of today’s school systems! We should take a look at the psychological aspect of today’s children and the effects of schools upon our children. One will find in school records the host of pranks and skipping and random violent acts in our schools are out of control in schools without corporal punishment. For instance, “Nationwide in the 2008 and 2009 academic school year thirteen deaths resulted from violence. The breakdown is as follows eight were shot with guns, four were suicide and one was stabbed. The number of shooting was actually thirty-seven, which twenty-four did not end in death.” (National School Safety and Security Services Inc.) These are astounding figures and I believe that it could have been avoided if the proper discipline had been administered.

Another aspect is the overflow in our reform schools. This could be a direct link to the lack of corporal punishment in the public school systems. Then what is the psychological aspect of the behavior of today’s children? This is where we look at the behavior of society’s reform schools and how the psychological aspect fits in. In retrospect; parenting is where the corporal punishment should begin and that we the parents have the legal right to discipline our children within reason. In other words make a spanking ok for the parent in the home and in return it is enacted at the school level.

This is a direct deterrent to the rise in crime because; if you are disciplined in your home within reason one is less likely to get into trouble in school, and in our society. I do realize as do we all it is a very fine line as to what determines a spanking or a beating. Thus, as a parent myself; I fully support corporal punishment in our schools. Discipline is necessary to keep order in the future for our children’s benefit. The statistics show that in reality corporal punishment by far outweighs and benefits our society. In the states that have corporal punishment crime rates are drastically lower than those that don’t. This tells me that corporal punishment is not only beneficial but also a necessity for our society, after all children are influenced by their parents and teachers more so than by their peers. Especially when most households have parents working two jobs therefore spending far less time in the home to discipline the children. Corporal punishment is needed for our schools.

Now let us look at the opposing side of corporal punishment both in the home and the public school system. Project No Spank is specifically geared toward Parents and Teachers against Violence in Education. Project No Spank is the web presence of PTAVE, this site has several links to books, articles and web-sites and research. “It is a resource tool for parents, students, educators, education policymakers, healthcare providers, children’s advocates, and all others who are concerned with the safety and wellbeing of children.” (Project No Spank) More parents and teachers are getting involved in the movement to stop corporal punishment every day. These advocates such as Project No Spank and PTAVE will be adding up to the thousands of members to these organization’s on a daily basis and overwhelming lobbyist and congressmen. There are one hundred and seven different organizations that are calling for the stop of corporal punishment in the public schools in the United States by writing open letters to the President of the United States. The APA (American Psychological Association) is one of the most influential of the organizations that is anti-capital punishment. They have numerous lobbyists working in Washington, DC to stop the use of corporal punishment in the public school system.

In closing, I trust I have fully explained both sides and especially clarifying any doubts that you may have regarding corporal punishment in the public school system. It will most likely just be a matter of time before corporal punishment is completely prohibited in the United States, since our country normally falls into the majority rules category. I believe when this happens you will see a rise in crime across the nation. The rise will be from the remaining twenty states that currently support and enforce corporal punishment. I pray that this doesn’t happen because what will this say about our society as a whole? That we don’t really care about the future of our children! It is the religious factions that still push corporal punishment, Christianity mainly. I trust that those of you who get the opportunity to read this paper will fully support corporal punishment within our school systems. It appears our nation is split into two opposing sides, only time will tell who will prevail in this struggle for our children. Which side will you choose?

Work Cited

“Corporal Punishment.” Conservamedia. 20 Oct. 2009 MediaWiki.Org 5 Feb.2011http://www.conservapedia.com/Corporal_punishment John J. Macionis and Nijole V. Benokraitis. SEEING OURSELVES Classic, Contemporary, and Cross-Cultural Readings in Sociology. Seventh Edition, copyright 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Page 156

The 2010 State Crime Rate and Rankings. 20 Apr. 2011
http://os.cqpress.com/rankings/2010/Crime_State_Rankings_2010.pdf “Corporal Punishment” Wikipedia. 2 Feb. 2011 Wikimedia Foundation 5 Feb. 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment National School Safety and Security Inc. School deaths and School Shootings 2008-2009

2011. 5 May. 2011 http://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/school_violence08-09.html Project No Spank. PTAVE. 23 Mar. 2011
http://nospank.net/main-x.htm