Why Is Corporal Punishment Still Allowed In More Than 37% of US State Schools?

I was beaten with a cane because my handwriting was so messy. I remember it so well. There were more ink blobs than the actual script!

It is understandable that the teacher was angry. But it is shocking that corporal punishment such as a physical beating was allowed in schools then in Ireland.

We are talking about the year 1957 when I was 9 or 10 years old. I still remember the sharp pain on my little finger on my left hand!

The teacher’s nickname was Dickser who was an elegant and caring teacher in other ways. What a pity he had not learned that corporal punishment was wrong. I still remember him patrolling the rows of desks with the cane tucked discreetly up the sleeve of his impeccable suit.

But I was lucky because many other kids were more savagely beaten by teachers. The instruments for torture varied from tree branches to furniture legs.

It took 25 years to have corporal punishment banned in Irish schools and finally in 1996, it became a criminal offense.

But Ireland was taken to task by the EU because they had not banned smacking and other types of physical punishment at home. That was a breach of the European Charter. Parents were still protected by a law that stated that “reasonable chastisement” was permitted. That included beating and other forms of physical punishment. The Irish parliament after only six months passed a new law in 2015, finally forbidding all that.

In the UK, corporal punishment in state schools was outlawed in 1986. It took about 12 more years for private schools to ban the practice.

Now you know why parents pay such high fees for the privilege of attending a school where caning is allowed!

Fast forward to 2020.

The most shocking fact I discovered is that there is no federal law in the USA banning this inhumane punishment of kids at school. In fact, it is still allowed in 19 states mostly in the south. Only 31 states have actually banned it. It is still legal in private schools in 48 states!

It is even more disturbing to learn that certain children who are disabled, male and African- American are much more likely to be subjected to this inhumane punishment. If you are a non-black and female you have a much better chance of escaping this awful treatment.

Beating and caning are still happening in these schools.

If we look at schools in Alabama and Mississippi, black children are five times more likely to be corporally punished than non-black children.

It gets worse because according to this New York Times report, corporal punishment cannot be used for any punishment of a crime. Neither can it be used in military training centers or in juvenile detention facilities. The Head Start pupils (low income, pre-school age) seem to be protected as well.

The latest records show for the 2013–14 school year that more than 106,000 children were corporally punished at school. These are the figures from the Office for Civil Rights in the Education Department.

Let’s face it. These are the figures which are the official ones so the number of children being subjected to this trauma must be much higher.

It seems that some adults are protected but the children are not!

Physical punishment is used to resolve issues such as:-

• Fighting/Aggression
• Disrespect of staff
• Mobile phone use
• Bullying
• Misbehavior on the bus
• Using bad language
• Disruptive behavior.

Seriously? Is this the only way in 2020 to deal with such behavior?

Guess which was the only country that refused to sign the 1990 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child? The USA!

This is the UN’s noble effort to try to eliminate corporal punishment in schools so that

“school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity.”

The USA stands with India and Australia as the only countries in the world where corporal punishment is still allowed in schools.

What an ignoble record.

Long way to go!