Adult/child symbol CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN (SPANKING)

The Issue

Restrictions on parental spanking is expected to become one of the main topics of debate between religious conservatives and liberals during the next decade.

The level of state sanctioned violence is gradually decreasing in society. In the past:

In 1996, only the last three categories are still legal in North America. And the degree of violence is in decline:

If we are to become less violent societies, some argue that we should ban all inter-personal violence.

The Current Legal Status of Corporal Punishment

Existing laws in most countries prohibit physical assaults. But these same laws often have "not withstanding" clauses that permit assaults:

Corporal punishment in the home and school are banned in a number of countries: Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Bans are currently being debated by the Governments of Germany, Ireland, Poland, Spain and Switzerland. A private member's bill by Canadian Member of Parliament Svend Robinson proposes the repeal of Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code which permits parents to use "reasonable force" when disciplining children.

The Case for Corporal Punishment

It is normally our policy to include both or all sides of an issue, and let the reader make up their mind on the matter. However, we abstain this time for moral reasons. The authors feel that beating children is so abhorrent and unjustifiable that they cannot include material that might serve to encourage the practice.

The Case Against Corporal Punishment

There are four main arguments against spanking:

Studies of mass murderers, "ordinary" murderers, rapists etc often show that they were victims as children of seriously abusive punishment during childhood. A preliminary study of inmates on death row of a US prison found that all had been so seriously abused as children that they had probably suffered brain injuries. If serious abuse causes such extreme anti-social behaviour, perhaps milder forms of punishment also contribute to violence in society.

The Family Research Laboratory of the University of New Hampshire conducted a large study involving over 3,000 mothers of 3 to 5 year old children during the late 1980's. The women were interviewed in 1986, 1988 and 1990. The found that 63% of the mothers had spanked their child at least once during the previous week. Among those that spanked, they hit their children a little over 3 times per week, on average. They found that the children which were spanked the most as 3 to 5 year olds exhibited higher levels of anti-social behaviour when observed 2 and 4 years later. This included higher levels of hitting siblings, hitting other children in school, defying parents and ignoring parental rules. Dr. Murray Straus, the Co-director of the Laboratory noted how ironic it is that the behaviours for which parents spank children are liable to get worse as a result of the spanking.

Many feminists, who have been battling spousal abuse for decades, are proposing a complete ban on violence as one way of reducing battering within the family. A 1995 Canadian study funded by the Federal government found that corporal punishment of children is associated with:

What Bible Says About Corporal Punishment

The phrase "spare the rod and spoil the child" is often incorrectly attributed to the Christian Bible. However, it was first written in a poem by Samuel Butler in 1664.

The following are important Biblical quotations relating to corporal punishment taken from the book of Proverbs in the King James Version of the Bible. They were written by King Solomon:

Many Fundamentalists and other Evangelicals, who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible feel that the above passages place upon them a religious obligation to physically punish rebellious children. At the other extreme are the views of Robert Ingersoll, a well known free-thinker, who wrote in 1891:

"To me it has always been a matter of amazement why civilized people, living in the century of Darwin and Humboldt, should quote as authority the words of Solomon, a murderer, an ingrate, an idolater, and a polygamist -- a man so steeped and sodden in ignorance that he really believed he could be happy with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines."

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Canada is a signatory to this convention; the United States has not yet taken action on it.

The Convention defines a child as any "human being below the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."

Article 19:
"States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and education measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child. Such protective measures should, as appropriate, include effective procedures for the establishment of social programs to provide necessary support for the child and for those who have the care of the child, as well as for other forms of prevention and for identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment and follow-up of instances of child maltreatment described heretofore, and, as appropriate, for judicial involvement."

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