This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This is an archive of discussion from Talk:Corporal punishment until 4 December 2005. Please do not alter it, but do conduct further discussion on the main talk page.

I removed the following section

While administrating corporal punishment to children can relieve the parent's stress, many psychologists contend that corporal punishment defies its purpose, breaking the trust between children and parents. Many violent criminals suffered some form of corporal punishment during childhood, which was possibly a determining factor in influencing their behaviour. On the other hand, many people who received corporal punishment during childhood lead normal lives.

for the following reason: This section is very biased and, Stress of a parent is seldom the reason for corporal punishment of children and, Many violent criminals suffered corporal punishment is like saying most criminals are known to drink water.... not a good argument and we are not suppose to make arguments

Below is my pov about this subject.

I can tell within 5 minutes kids who do not receive corporal punishment at all. They are disrespectful, do not listen, are ill behaved.

Also.... Even if someone harshly (even abusively) punishes a child for something the child knows was wrong, it does far less damage than using verbal abuse such as saying ..."you stupid kid, I'm ashamed of you, I regret having you, you are a worthless piece of #### .... and so on"

I have known several people who have been harshly, I would call abusively, punished as kids for something they did wrong... They brag about how they took the punishment, and vow not to do that to their children (and don't)...

I've never heard anyone ever brag how well they took verbal lashing....but have seen kids destroyed by it, then repeat the behavior to their kids.

just my two cents

I can see no current discussion on this page about the neutrality of the article. Therefore I propose to remove the NPOV tag unless there are objections. Also, it would help if users on this page signed their contributions using four squiggles like this ~~~~ so we could judge whether the debates are current or not. The Land 13:54, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Done for the reasons stated above. If you wish to dispute the neutrality of the article, you are free to restore the NPOV dispute template. However if you do, please give your reasons here with a signed comment. The Land 09:41, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The NPOV tag has been restored because of recent importation of questionable pro-corporal punishment material, such as the statistics and "pro and con" section (which is really a barely disguised "pro" section). 195.92.40.49 12:17, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Article requires more sources for pro and con section, and more arguments against capital punishment. Section should also be cleaned up- either individual pros and cons separated, or the argument separated into points of contention. 202.156.6.54 09:51, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Whole slabs of this article are clearly biased. The article refers to holding an attitude "even as the permissive era draws to a close." The permissive era? That's a fairly contentious notion, and I think it exemplifies the tone of the article: there's an implicit assumtion that corporal punishment is fine and good. That's an opinion, and whoever's been contributing to the article is entitled to hold it, but it is inappropriate for Wikipedia. Regrettably, I don't feel qualified to Wikify the article, as my own knowledge of the matter is limited - I have my own biases, and I don't want to simply replace when set of biases with another. If anyone out there thinks they can bring this up to scratch, that'd be nice.

What I do feel qualified to change is a very simple word: "this" to "that," in regard to the traditions of parental authority in the U.S. This is the World Wide Web - it's safe to assume that some of us out here aren't from the U.S. It'd be a minor issue in isolation, but it's another instance of a NPOV violation in an article full of them.

• • While I, personally, advocate corporal punishment, I agree. Comments like "permissive era" or taking one side or the other defeats the purpose of wikipedia; an open online encylopedia with a neutral point of view. Someone needs to "wikify" this, definitely. Tom S.

I removed a passage of text because it was simply a persons own experiences, not particularly well written. While a persons own experiences are certainly valid in some ways, with this particularly emotive subject I could see a situation developing where dozens of people simply added personal anecdotes with no informative value.

I find some of the text questionable:

"There is also the argument that without recourse to the short, sharp smack parents may use forms of emotional violence that are actually more abusive. This has, unfortunately, been seen in police reports coming out of Sweden (first to ban corporal punishment) revealing increased cruelty by both adults and children." I've never heard about this. I'd like to see some proove (external links etc).

"The social science research shows that moderate corporal punishment is quick, safe and effective (and literally superficial) --" I've never heard about this kind of researches.

I also added other countries which have banned the all use of corporal punishment to the text.

I've removed the sentence "This has, unfortunately, been seen in police reports coming out of Sweden (first to ban corporal punishment) revealing increased cruelty by both adults and children." as I have not heard of any such reports; please provide cites if you want to restore it -- note that more than anecdotal evidence would be needed for this. -- The Anome 15:23, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

I've also removed this entire paragraph:

Some social science research shows that moderate corporal punishment is quick, safe and effective (and literally superficial), but some argue that it may be difficult for parents (especially substance-abusers or those under extreme financial stress) and other authorities to find appropriate limits. Other research shows exactly the opposite, that even mild corporal punishment can cause "anti-social behavior".

OK, there's one lot of research pro-corporal punishment, and another lot anti-corporal punishment -- but they're both unsourced! Sources, please, before anyone restores this paragraph. -- The Anome 15:30, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Have cut these two articles out because in their current form they do not add to the article. If someone wanted to analyse them, great; however we should not be reproducing possibly copyrighted media material. 10:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

UK SCHOOLGIRL CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Taken from a Television Documentary February 1991

The Last School to Cane its Girls

There is still one school in the UK which still canes girls for misbehaving.The private Rodney School in Nottinghamshire carries out the punishment with fullapproval of the Equal Opportunties Commission.The Headmistress of the school belives that if boys are beaten then girls must be too.

The Headmistress insisted 'I dont cane the children to hurt them'. 'Only to shame them'.'Of course the girls deserve equal punishmnet'.'Boys can be more boisterous but girls can be far more devious'.'Children often need putting in their place bringing them down a peg or two'.

The Headmistress who has run the school for 47 years and admits she even beat her own daughter when she was a pupil will use the cane or the slipper if the girls misbehave in school.

Of the 580 senior independent schools in the UK only seven others use Corporal Punishment and then only on boys.But David Thomas of the Equal Opportunities Commission siad schools that continue to use the cane must punish both sexes.

At Rodney School set on magnificent parkland near Newark the girls support their Headmistress who canes them.One 15 year old pupil said 'I had the choice of being gated for three weekends or getting the cane'. 'I decided to have the cane because it would be quicker'.She received three swipes on her open palm after being caught going into town in home clothes instaed of her school uniform added 'If you have done something wrong you should pay for it'.

Her friend a 16 year old girl was also caned in the school for being caught in her dormitory with another girl and some boys when she was 12 she received three strokes of the cane on each hand for this misbehaviour.

Corporal punishment was abolished in UK State Schools in `987 but continued in the private sector until 1999.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN UK SCHOOLS NOVEMBER 1948

MOLLY and Freda, Kathleen, Edna and Sylvia - "the Herongate girls" - are on strike from school and they say, nothing short of forgiveness and the promise of no more caning will get them back again.

All of them have played truant, with their parents' consent, for almost a week, and every day, instead of catching the special bus that should take them from their homes at Herongate to the Brentwood Senior School, three miles away, they wave to their school friends as the bus goes by.

Molly Abbott, aged 12, and Freda, aged 14, are sisters who live in a council house on the Ingrave-road. Kathleen Turner, nearly 15, lives next door. Edna Lee, aged 13, and Sylvia Austin, aged 13, both live about half a mile away.

They Sang

Nearly three weeks ago the "Herongate Girls", with most of the girls on the special bus, were singing "Roll Out the Barrel" and "Run, Rabbit, Run" and other songs on their way home.

The bus conductor and the driver joined in and enjoyed the sing-song. "But Dawn Bloomfield, our prefect, reported us," said Molly to me to-day.

"Two days afterwards Miss James, the headmistress, sent for seven or eight of us and gave us the cane. Dawn was not at school that day, but when she came back three of us - including me - hit her. I pulled her hair for being a tell-tale.

"Her sister went to the school and told Miss James. Then eight of us were put on the stage in the hall and Miss James caned us in front of all the other girls in the school. We ran home and I haven't been back to school since."

'Not Fair'

Mrs. Abbott, Molly's mother, said: "I don't think it's fair that the headmistress should cane the girls for such a simple thing as singing on the bus." Mrs. Turner, Kathleen's mother, told me that her girl had only six weeks or so to remain at school, before she was due to leave.

"I would have taken her back to school to-day but her cousin told me yesterday that Miss James has paraded the whole school and from the stage told them that she had not finished with the Herongate Girls yet.

"According to Kathleen's cousin, Miss James said that when they go back they will either be expelled or caned again. Kathleen won't go back now."

At the school Miss James was "not present" when I called, but had left a message that she did not wish to make any comment.

I found the "criminals received corporal punishment" alone quite biased, so I decided to add that not all people who received this kind of punishment turn into criminals.

There's been a considerable amount of linkspamming recently on corporal punishment (and associated subjects, birching, caning etc) to the corpun website, which is a none too accurate and not entirely neutral source. Please be vigilant!

• If the numerous links to CorPun (or rather documents on that site) seem like linkspam, that is largely the unintended consequence of 1° the negligence of most contributors to provide any (other) sources and references, 2° the prozaic fact that I, for my part, concentrating on the description, not the controversy, found this site an unequaled treasure trove of documentation from very many and diverse sources, all to be approached with a critical eye- it clearly states itself that this is just providing documentation, not a point of view, while admitting the contra-side is knowingly somewhat under-represented but that is not a major problem insofar as it seems less prone to provide detailed facts, rather hammers on its well-known convictions; fortunately most documents such as legislation, testimonies and press cuttings report rather then to advocate, or at least a bit of both). If anyone can provide other, even better repositories of factual material (especially pre-1800, relatively thin on CorPun to) I'ld be happy to make good use of it, but if nobody does, don't bitch (pardon my language) if contributors use what they can use

P.S. As for the controversy part, it is by definition to polemic to be objective, but the debate is so prominent that it is noteworthy in itself, as long as it remains clear most of the arguments are just positions, not facts leading to an inevitable conclusion. Fastifex 11:56, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

• As soon as people start using language such as "vast, constantly growing website entirely devoted to various forms of corporal punishment in various countries and circles, combining press reports, legislation, testimony etcetera" they've moved from information to advertising. This is linkspamming, pure and simple.

If the legend you quote is your problem, because its sounds like publicity although every word is true, and seems to me worth knowing since this happens to touch most aspects of this very subject, -and by the way I have no link whatsoever with CorPun, nor did I even have the honour to converse with its driving force- then by all means feel free to cut it down to a less 'suggestive' label, as long as genuinely interested readers aren't denied easy access to such a vast etc. . Fastifex 13:25, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

• Can we please have people signing their posts so that there's a chance of others following the debate. I see no problem at all with specific links to the corpun website, so long as they follow the normal guidelines. I've inserted a link to their mainpage at the bottom of the article, along with other general interesting links. The Land 14:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

A user(s) has been adding a lot of information in the 'types and means' section. It's all interesting stuff: however, it is now taking up most of the article and is mainly analysis rather than fact. Does it warrant its own page? And does it constitute (non-encyclopedic) original research? The Land 14:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

• As the main contributor to this article, especially nearly all of Types and Means (which is by no means completed yet, let alone complete), I'm delightened you find it all interesting; calling it mainly analysis is rather to much flattery: I'm sure a freshly applied analytic mind could examin this material and use it to develop insights we have not yet ventured into. Hopefully you and others can start by contributing more facts (and/or other usefull sources) so as to balance the size of the section, either within Scope of use or, even better, aspects nobody touched yet. When I created the present structure (there was little else then a definition and some Controversy) I intended precisely to allow the reader to navigate via the Contents between facts and views, as there is no better gestation area for dumb prejudice then pontificating without any care whether orator and audience even know what they are going on about - so I can't think of a worse move then isolating Types and Means (by the way, under what title? on its own, it might almost seem a course in repression, or an AI report) as it would leave C.P. rather empty. Of course it would be impossible to come up with a fraction of this encyclopedic material by truely original research, but as far as I know a relatively comprehensive, systematical and surveyable approach is hard to find, sources are either very limited in scope or a bit of a labyrinth (I think of CorPun here, but it's amazing how much work is already being done here to gather that much material and even add some critical notes), requiring weeks to get even half of the building blocks found Fastifex 12:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The 'types and means' section is very long and meandering, and actually is a "bit of a labyrinth" itself. It needs to be condensed and cleaned up (for example putting periods at the end of sentences, using paragraphs, spelling (whether is incorrectly spelled as wether several times), etc.) I would make the changes myself but the entire section needs to be cut out, IMO, see my comment under Talk:Corporal_punishment#Cleanup below.-- Kewp (t) 11:09, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

This article is in a very poor state at present and requires work. Specific points that need to be tackled are:

• Poorly structure: there are far too many minor subdivisions and the sections seem to be placed in no logical order. There is also too much use of bullet points, where such usage is not always warranted.

• POV: there is a lot of POV material in this article and, as it has developed, more has been added. For instance, the section on arguments for and against corporal punishment is clearly written by someone in favour of the practice.

• Discussion in article: this is what the talk page is for.

• Poor use of statistics: all statistics must be adaquately sourced so that they can be analysed and, if necessary challenged by other wikipedians.

• Pedantry: do we really need to know that punishment can be with strap, whip, riding crop, spoon, axe (axe?!?) and so forth? Much of this becomes unnecessary verbiage that tells the reader little.

• Poor writing. This needs no explanation.

• Questionable use of sources. Much of the material is sourced from the questionable pro-corporal punishment Corpun website. Selective research is no excuse for bias.

195.92.40.49 13:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

The alternative to corporal punishment are not exactly well proven to make better children and more function adults. The 2 kids behind the Columbine massacre were never spanked and there is believe among pro-spanking advocates (both with and without psychological training) that more lenient punishing techniques accompanying with the modern usage of massive self-esteem uplifting, increase the like hood of making children into narcissists and sociopath. I have seen plenty of antidotal and personal evidence for this though I have not seen a statically studies, and that in its self is the problem here.

Without statically evidence specific to a claim, that claim is nothing more then speculation, be it from a laymen or train psychologist! This works both ways in not being able to invalid other child punishment techniques while also making any claims against corporal punishment not back by such evidence purely speculation: so claims the corporal punishment teaches violence, is just that claim of speculation, unless a study can be shown that children punished under corporal punishment are more violent then children punished in a non-corporal manner, when all other variables are accounted for. Claims corporal punishment is the same as child abuse, speculation unless studies can show psychological traumas cause by child abuse is present in children that were spanked! Claims corporal punishment is counter productive and not as effective as other punishment techniques, you guessed it, without studies comparing and statically validating these claims, they are just claims!

Claims do not make a neutral article that states known fact, it makes a bias articles and purports a view with none proof of validity.

So get with the citations and references!

• After stating I advanced none of the un-supported claims, I can see you have a point at least in so far that (especially partial) contributors should try to substantiate their claims; however that is not the whole story, both for methodological reasons and because the very debate in itself it to some point sociologically interesting, provided claims aren't presented as proven facts with impunity. I therefore create an additional subsection for statistical questions within Controversy; hopefully you and as many serious debaters as possible will contribute to it, I will only on occasion do so as my approach is essentially descriptive, not judgmental, as I prefer the reader to make up his own mind after the facts have been (but not mis-re-)presented by us contributors Fastifex 08:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Statistics section

Have removed the untidy statistic section to here so people can work on it wihtout it eating up the Wikipedia. Note I did not make the constribution directly above this Talk section. The Land 12:16, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

This subsection is meant only for numerical data relevant to substantiate claims pro or contra, e.g. revealing the effects, NOT for 'dry' data such as on the occurrence of corporal punishments or the %-spread of opinions

• CAUTION - there is truth in the saying you can prove anything by statistics; interpretation is often subjective, questions suggestive, samples less then representative or unbalanced, comparing data from different periods may be clouded by relevant other developments, etc.

(room for many concise statistics -please state and/or link the source- and precisely
labeled links; objective critical considerations -not opinions- are also welcome,
it italics either alongside if specific or above if of a general nature)

• when an Ohio village had its marshall publicly strap over 200 juveniles from 8 to 15 in 1937, their 'delinquency' dropped 60% [ [1]] considering the 'gravest' offence was school truancy, punished by flogging every evening for a month, one wonders how 40% dared continue any mischief - maybe including things they did not imagine being punished for?
• after the abolition of school C.P. in South Africa, the failure rate of matric students rose from under 50% under Apartheid to 60% by 1999 [ [2]

but many schools also got other handicaps, e.g. race-mixed classes may simply be less efficient

Which way?

Well, we can't have our cake and eat it: either we accomodate for the (in may view legitimate, but possibly unrealisticaly ambitious) drive for statistical evidence, OR we deny this to the ordinary reader as Talk is little more then a medium for editorial conflict (or coordinaton) among Contributors. IF it goes that 'esoterical' way, let's at least provide a clear referral in the Article Fastifex 12:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

You don't really get this, do you? The point is that statistical evidence is important if one wants to make definitive claims on the effects of corporal punishment. However, unsupported, unsourced statistics are utterly useless and shouldn't appear on the page, as they could be simply made up. And the ones that have appeared on the page in the past do look like they were the invention of some journalist or other, rather than being the results of proper scientific study. 62.25.106.209 10:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary, you seem unable (or unwilling? - I hope not) to distinguish between (the sections devoted to) fact and opinion: the whole Controversy section is only meant as the last (this phenomenon, distinct from CP itself, is however as noteworthy as say abolitionism before the end of slavery, albeit not my fancy), but is taken for more by some- I therefore isolate it as a separate Section at the back, and put the POV-tag on that, since it seems to be the only one attracting such criticism, which is as inevitable (it ARE opinions) as pointless (for the very same reason) except insofar as it gets confused with fact. I would like nothing better then create ANOTHER (sub)section with scientifically irrefutable statistics, but nobody has contributed any yet (otherwise the whole methodology idea would have had no reason of existence). The next logical step seems to me to put the 'dubious' statistics back in as a Subsection thereof, as they are at least noteworthy as opiniatory claims Fastifex 13:27, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Opinion should not appear in an encyclopedia at all. The NPOV tag is not a warning to readers, but a suggestion to editors that material needs to be cleaned up. 62.25.106.209 14:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

not _just_ a warning to readers. We should aim to provide factual information to readers, including the fact that it may not be as neutral as it should be, where necessary. 202.156.6.54 09:59, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed the following section from the article:

"===Controversy==="

"There is a strikingly greater input of contributions pro or contra under the equivalent heading in the article on Spanking - apparently most are more concerned with the generally temporary reddening of juvenile buns in schools and at home then with the often graver wounds inflicted on young and old(er) in the very name of justice."

I think that this belongs on the talk page and not in the middle of the article. Especially since it self-references Wikipedia controversy and talks about "temporary reddening of juvenile buns." not to mention that it doesn't make any sense.-- Kewp (t) 08:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned up a few passages that were almost impossible to understand. This article is very difficult to read, especially in the "Types and Means" section. This section is filled with tortuous prose and I'm not sure that the Theater analogy is entirely appropriate for a section of this length. A comparison with theater could make a interesting (short)sub-section, but it shouldn't be dragged out for half the article, with "Sets and Props" and "Dramatis personae." It's verging on the ridiculous. Plus the information in the latter half of the article should be in paragraphs not in lists, which makes the article very hard to follow.-- Kewp (t) 11:02, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Some very good work here. I think some of the material in the "Types and Means" section should be retained, in particular the sections on implements used in punishment and the anatomical targets of punishment. As a whole, however, this part of the article needs some serious work and some major cuts. 62.25.106.209 11:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree, the "Types and Means" section reads more like an newspaper editorial and less like factual information. It's heresay and partial misrepresentation of facts. It's writen in dramatic prose, questionable terms are used as synonyms for corporal punishment and the author states his opinion a few times. This section should be removed completely. Instead of leaving it and trying to fix it, remove it and try to add back the few usable pieces of information such as the anatomical targets of punishment, sans opinion and bias.

Danbeck 03:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the article's history, since earlier comments, most of the useful information in "Types and Means" has been pulled out and dumped in other sections. I agree that 90%+ could be deleted without damaging the article. 62.25.106.209 08:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I've heavily trimmed "Types and Means" now to a few short paragraphs. The article needs a bit of restructing and these could probably be moved elsewhere, if they are to be kept. 195.92.40.49 09:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

It is a shame that people such as the commentator below can mutilate an article in the name of improving it. Obviously, there is a direct correlation between violent crime and the punishment received as a child.

-Is there? Quote studies. 202.156.6.54 09:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

This person claims "bias" against corporal punishment, and then adds a much worse bias in favor of it.

It is true that not all victims of this kind of abuse become "criminals." Those who don't become criminals become fascists, or "bad cops."

There can be no doubt that violent crime in America is higher among blacks than whites. Likewise, there can be no doubt that child discipline is more violent among blacks than whites. Who could fail to see a correlation, there?

-Again, quote studies or figures. Possible post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. 202.156.6.54 09:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

There can be no doubt that child discipline is more violent in the states which fought on the side of slavery. Wherever you find child discipline more violent, you will find a greater degree of racism, fascism, or some other such negative political climate.

Those supporting corporal punishment of children say that it's better than harsh words. Well, remember the old saying: "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me."

I suppose that parents whipping their children mercilessly, or teachers in school who do it, never utter a harsh word in combination with the physical punishment!

They say that "harsh words tear down self-esteem," yet they whine endlessly about how we BUILD UP children's self-esteem. Do they consider the problem that we are BUILDING UP their self-esteem too much, or that we are TEARING IT DOWN too much?

Can they really expect to make the argument BOTH WAYS ?

I believe that it is too extreme to say that we should "never" use spanking of any sort. I believe that young children should be aware of what spanking IS, and that it is a possible punishment.

They should be "shown the instruments." Here is a paddle. Here is a leather strap. Here is how grandma used to "cut a switch" for herself when she was a little girl. A hairbrush might be used, or a wooden spoon.

Of course, for small children, a yardstick or a fly-swatter might be used.

We should tell them, "This is how it used to be. And we might use this method if we think we have to. But we don't want to do it, and we don't think it's the best way to raise a child."

Eric Underdog

Hi,

With this edit, Alarics removed an addition made nine hours before by an IP account.

Alarics' comment was that "International law does not deal with corporal punishment. The Convention on the Rights of the Child makes no mention of it."

I agree that the Convention on the Rights of the Child does not have the phrase, "corporal punishment", or even the word, "corporal", anywhere in its text.

However, the implementing body, the United Nation's Committee on the Rights of the Child has "recommended prohibition of all corporal punishment, in the family and other settings, to more than 130 States in all continents." [3]

It has done this on the basis of "arts. 19; 28, para. 2; and 37, inter alia". I think that article 19.1 of the CRC has particular significance:

States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational 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.

Because of this, I think that the CRC does deal with corporal punishment, and that the IP account's section can be reinserted.

Submitted for your discussion,

-- Kevinkor2 ( talk) 06:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

How the Committee *chooses to interpret* the Convention is quite a different thing from what the Convention itself actually says. The Committee has unilaterally decided that all and any corporal punishment, however careful or mild, constitutes "physical or mental violence, injury or abuse" -- a highly tendentious interpretation, which has been explicitly rejected by such States Parties to the Convention as Australia, Canada and the UK. Critics note that the wording of the Convention cannot originally have been meant to be interpreted thus, and the Committee, an unelected and unaccountable body, can only *recommend* that States Parties abolish corporal punishment, it cannot make them do so. Alarics ( talk) 08:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The Convention is merely a large quantity of words that need explanation. The Committee is founded (1) to oversee its ratification and implementation, but also (2) to interpret these words. As the Convention is an internationally legally binding document, any comments made by the Committee vis-a-vis the correct interpretation of the Convention has enormous legal significance and weight. The Committee is a highly authoritative body and its members are, in fact, nominated and elected by states parties to the Convention. For these reasons, the inclusion of the Convention and the comments of the Committee are highly relevant to the article and I have re-inserted them, along with many other relevant international rulings regarding corporal punishment (in particular those regarding children).

I have not, in fact, re-inserted the original additions that started this discussion, but added relevant material from other sources. However, I am sympathetic towards the re-insertion of the addition that started this discussion, in particular as regards the research related to and laws in Pakinstan.

Regarding the objections of Australia, Canada and the UK that Alarics raised, I have included that in the footnote to the ruling of the Committee. It can be moved to a more prominent place if that is preferred.-- Gulpen ( talk) 23:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid the reality is that the Committee is regarded as "a highly authoritative body" only by those who agree with its pronouncements. It does describe its members as "elected" but of course they are not, they are appointed, within a top-down UN bureaucracy that entirely lacks accountability or transparency. They are self-described "experts" and there is no democratic involvement. Few of them are jurists, or even lawyers of any kind, and only a court of law, which this committee is not, can make binding rulings as to the interpretation of a text. In this respect the situation is quite different from, say, that of the European Convention on Human Rights, which has a real court made up of real judges to decide how the words of the treaty apply in any particular case. -- Alarics ( talk) 10:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Although the Committee's Comments may not bear the highly authoritative weight in the legal sense (which I may have implied) the Committee does have a highly authoritative status in other ways: It is a UN body, the Convention (which founded the Committee, I presume) has been ratified by all countries in the world except three (US, South-Sudan [new] an Somalia [no govt., but committed to ratify it]), which implies that virtually all governments are in principle supportive of the Committee. This weight stands in favour of treating the Committee and its comments as very important. Of course it is possible to argue that the UN is undemocratic, that the Committee has become corrupted, etc., but that does require the presentation of due evidence in support of this and may trespass the boundaries of this article. If the only evidence is that three countries opposed to this particular Comment of the Committee, than that implies that ~190 countries do support it. I think it is more appropriate to add such evidence as a side-note than just removing the viewpoints of the Committee. However, I am not a legal expert and without finding further evidence I will support Alarics removal of that particular sentence.

Moreover, I agree that the Committee's full definition of corporal punishment may be a bit too much. However, the definition of the Committee is relevant because it adds a different dimension to the meaning of corporal punishment. In specific, I am referring to this part: corporal punishment is "any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light." That is, regarding the intensity, the Committee defines corporal punishment as any degree of pain or discomfort. This is an extremely important aspect of the definition of corporal punishment, because an often heard argument is that those who inflict physical force do not consider it to be physical force (and, hence, not corporal punishment), because it does only 'little harm'. Taking into consideration the importance of highlighting this dimension + the arguments laid out in the previous paragraph regarding the status of the Committee (+ that this Comment, No.1, is as far as I know not contested by any state), I have returned the definition, but in a shorter form.

As regards whether the definition of the Committee is of relevance to a general definition of corporal punishment, or only regarding children, I submit that the definition is general, and merely the examples given regarding the types of corporal punishment are specific for children. If one can find an even more authoritative definition of corporal punishment I'd be happy to discuss it.

It is true that all but 3 countries have signed up to the Convention, which created the Committee, but that doesn't mean they agree with everything the Committee subsequently says. And in fact several States Party to the Convention have explicitly rejected the Committee's interpretation on this particular issue, a fact I thought was mentioned somewhere in the article but it seems to have been deleted. I think in the interests of clarity and balance that fact ought to be stated, as also the fact that States Party cannot possibly be supposed to have signed away their sovereignty as a blank cheque against whatever the Committee chooses to come up with later that was not in the Convention itself. -- Alarics ( talk) 17:29, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I completely agree. Regarding the explicit rejection by the three countries, it wasn't deleted. I wrote above: "Regarding the objections of Australia, Canada and the UK that Alarics raised, I have included that in the footnote [note 31 atm] to the ruling of the Committee. It can be moved to a more prominent place if that is preferred". I do think that their rejection is very relevant. Feel free to merge it into the main text. I think I didn't include it in the main text because I didn't have a source.

We could also clarify the difference between the Convention (to which state parties have legal obligations) and the comments of the Committee (which are rather recommended interpretations, not legally binding), i.e. if I understand everything correctly now. -- Gulpen ( talk) 00:57, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Corporal punishment, as generally understood, may sometimes have accidentally caused physical injury, but physical injury is not the object of the exercise and cannot be part of the main definition of corporal punishment. To state that it is so in the first sentence of the introduction is extremely misleading. The phrase corporal punishment refers to such things as spanking or paddling to cause temporary pain without injury. Amputation as a punishment in Islam is covered in the Amputation article. -- Alarics ( talk) 10:24, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that seems to me very untrue. Are you really saying that the society does not have a word for the use of physical injury for disciplinary purposes? Yes, it does, and this is it. To not cover this in the corporal punishment article has to be a modern western whitewash of the historical facts, and of the current facts in certain parts of the globe. [4] If you are right you will be able to provide the word for the practice, since physical injury has been used for the entire span of history as punishment. What is the alternative word for these practices? BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 20:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

"Corporal punishment" merely means use of the corpus the body for punishment. There's just nothing else you'd call it. Amputation is an extreme form of corporal punishment. BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 20:58, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe the Romans used cutting off of ears? It's a very common practice, and needs to be covered in this article [5]. Here also [6] BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 21:50, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's a quote:

The International Committee of the Red Cross has not changed its position on corporal punishment. However, in the case of amputations carried out under sharia, the international committee has decided that it will take action. The international committee will:

• State its objection to amputations based on sharia law but will not do so publicly
• Refuse to allow personnel employed by the international committee to participate in performing amputations under sharia
• Refuse to provide the premises, the knowledge, or material for performing these amputations
• Call for leniency in each case
• Protect doctors who refuse to participate in sharia amputations
• Support the World Medical Association in working to develop national legislation against such practices, and
• Support the World Medical Association in its efforts to develop national medical associations to provide support for doctors who refuse to carry out sharia sentences. [7]

BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 22:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

And it doesn't seem to come under torture [8] BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 23:10, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

About the sources that Becritical provided:

Slave Punishment:

It looks to be self-published, and therefore not a reliable source.

It does not mention "corporal punishment", so I cannot determine whether the author believed any of the slave punishments mentioned were forms of corporal punishments.

Ethical dilemma: Sharia punishment, treatment, and speaking out:

I believe it is a reliable source.

It states, International Committee of the Red Cross "has not changed its position on corporal punishment." However, the committee has issued guidelines with regard to sharia amputations. This indicates to me that the ICRC treats "corporal punishment" and "sharia amputations" as disjoint terms.

It states, for Médecins Sans Frontières, "we are strongly opposed to the types of corporal punishment which are permitted under sharia, such as stoning and amputations." This indicates to me that MSF treats stoning and amputations as forms of corporal punishment.

Corporal Punishment - Prevalence:

I believe it is a free encyclopedia, especially with the first link on the page being, "Other free encyclopedias".

I have no idea whether it is a reliable source or not.

It states, "More serious forms of corporal punishment, including flogging and amputation, have undergone a revival in certain Islamic countries that have experienced a resurgence in fundamentalism." This indicates to me that the editors of law.jrank.org treat amputation as a form of corporal punishment.

Finally, the book, The abuses of punishment By Robert Adams:

It is not self-published. Instead, it is published by Macmillan Publishers, especially Palgrave Macmillan.

On page 118, it states, "Corporal punishments such as flogging and punitive amputations are prohibited by a ruling of the Human Rights Committee ... made in July 1982, that corporal punishment falls into the prohibited category of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, punishment or torture (Amnesty International, 1984, p. 16)"

If the sources of this statement checks out, then Robert Adams, the Human Rights Committee, and Amnesty International believe that punitive amputation is a form of corporal punishment.

-- Kevinkor2 ( talk) 06:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Because I don't have access to the bibliography of the book by Robert Adams, I cannot check the two sources, HRC July 1982 and Amnesty International, 1984, p. 16.

-- Kevinkor2 ( talk) 06:42, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that was a lot of research (: Those were just sources I came across on the web. I think what I'd do next is look at other governmental statements and such. I wish I had a library handy but I don't. Let's work on it more tomorrow. BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 06:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe the term you are looking for is "physical punishment". At the moment the WP page of that title redirects to corporal punishment (this article) but I think that is wrong. "Physical punishment" includes corporal punishment but also amputation, not to mention capital punishment -- which is obviously "corporal" in the sense that it affects the body, but which is always discussed as a separate issue from "corporal punishment", as in the common phrase "capital or corporal punishment". I suggest making "physical punishment" into a page in its own right, which will then list, with wikilinks to the appropriate articles, capital punishment, corporal punishment, amputation, the stocks, the pillory, and anything else we can think of. I will do this when I get home later today. Alarics ( talk) 14:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

You may be correct and we need to do further research. A brief Google of the terms gave this, and I didn't vet the source for reliability:

In the

United States, physical punishment is known by a variety of euphemisms, including “spank,” “smack,” “slap,” “pop,” “beat,” “paddle,” “punch,” “whup/whip,” and “hit.”4,5 The term “physical punishment” is often used interchangeably with the terms “corporal punishment” or “physical

discipline.” [9]

Elizabeth Gershoff seems to already be used as a source in Corporal_punishment_in_the_home, so maybe that's one reliable source which equates the terms. Also, she uses "physical punishment" as an alternative term for what this article calls corporal punishment, so we know physical punishment is not a term exclusive to the more extreme forms. BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 19:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, "physical punishment" includes all forms of corporal punishment but it could also be, for example, in the domestic setting, confining a child to its room; or in the school setting, being required to run laps or do a given number of push-ups; or various other things not generally included in the term "corporal punishment". I've now established Physical punishment as a separate page with links to the various subtopics, including things like amputation (which, incidentally, could probably do with expanding in this respect). Alarics ( talk) 22:39, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

And I've slightly reworded the lead of this article (corporal punishment) to clarify that corporal punishment is a subset of physical punishment, with a link to the latter. -- Alarics ( talk) 22:42, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, we agree then physical punishment includes corporal punishment. However, we haven't established that corporal punishment does not include physical punishment. Can you provide a source which says that physical punishment is a different term than corporal punishment, and is more inclusive? Otherwise, I don't see any reason to have two articles. Corporal punishment, as I understand the term and as the sources I've seen seem to corroborate, includes all forms of punishment by means of the body, and thus all forms should be included in this article. As the Physical punishment page is set up, we need sources which distinguish corporal punishment as something different. As it is, our sources say that corporal punishment is an umbrella term, and physical punishment is the same thing. So this article should include all forms and be a central article for all the different forms. BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 23:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and unless there are sources which say so, it seems to me that things like imprisonment should not be included in "physical punishment." This all seems like a false distinction... is it made at all in the sources? BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 23:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

And see this section, it seems we are including various forms of custodial punishment under physical.

The sources you seek are already in the article. See footnotes 24 to 30 inclusive. -- Alarics ( talk) 23:16, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

That's my point "corporal punishment: punishment inflicted on the body; originally including death, mutilation, branding, bodily confinement, irons, the pillory." Okay, so that means that we need to have Corporal punishment as an umbrella article, with its various forms included in sub-sections, to include the extreme forms such as amputation. But I see what you mean, the sources seem to include confinement as a form of corporal punishment. I have to be gone tomorrow and the next day, but will try to organize things a little bit along these lines when I come back. BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 01:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

[10] A third (33%) reported cases of severe injury due to punishment. BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 03:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It is physical punishment that already is and, in my view, should remain the umbrella article. Corporal punishment is one of the subsections of it. Your mention of the Oxford English Dictionary definition is incomplete: it does say "originally including death, mutilation, branding, bodily confinement, irons, the pillory, etc." but it goes on to say that since the 19th century it is "usually confined to flogging or similar infliction of bodily pain". The other dictionary definitions cited all make no reference to anything other than beating/caning/flogging/striking. That is overwhelmingly the usual meaning of the phrase "corporal punishment". The dictionaries reflect standard usage. Managing to find the occasional writer who has interpreted the term more loosely does not invalidate that. If a school administrator is reported as discussing the value or otherwise of corporal punishment, nobody supposes that they might have the amputation of students' hands in mind. -- Alarics ( talk) 09:11, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I see your point, but we do have several reliable sources which say that corporal punishment is the umbrella term, and none which give physical punishment as the most common scholarly term. I'll be back to discuss in a couple of days (: BE——Critical_{__ Talk} 15:36, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

We do have several reliable sources which say that corporal punishment is the umbrella term ( User:Becritical)

Some of these are not obviously reliable sources, as User:Kevinkor2 has already pointed out.

-- The Roman Slave page doesn't include the phrase "corporal punishment", so whether it is a reliable source or not (impossible to tell; it cites no sources and states no authorship), it doesn't support your argument.

-- The book by Robert Adams, "The abuses of punishment", seems to be an explicitly anti-punishment tract and is therefore not NPOV. He takes it as a given that corporal punishment is "abusive", which is a point of view, but only one of several possible points of view. I cannot discover much about the author and what his qualifications might be; the dustjacket of his book says he is a "Professor of Human Services Development", an academic discipline I have not previously come across, at a little-known new university in Hull, England (not the well-known University of Hull). He has also written a book called "Critical practice in social work", and edited one called "Social Work Futures: Crossing Boundaries, Transforming Practice". I am not sure how relevant an expertise in social work practice is to questions of definition in the sphere of punishment. He is evidently not the Professor Robert Adams who is a Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford University. Anyway, I notice that he quotes a lot from Cooper (1869) and Van Yelyr (1941), two books that purport to be about corporal punishment. I have copies of both, and they are clearly deeply unscholarly works and in my view not at all reliable. Adams also cites explicitly POV sources such as EPOCH, an anti-corporal-punishment campaign. Anti-CP campaigners naturally find it is in their interests to lump together as many disparate phenomena as possible and call all of it "corporal punishment", but this is contrary to what has been general usage.

Adams states his own definition of "corporal punishment" as "direct punitive blows inflicted by one person on another, including those which lead to amputation", which seems rather odd, since amputation is, as far as I know, achieved not by "blows" but by sawing or chopping. On that basis, corporal punishment would presumably also include beheading with a sword, yet that would surely be described by most people as capital, rather than corporal, punishment. Even his definition, though, would evidently still exclude various things that are certainly "physical punishment" but which are not usually regarded as part of "corporal punishment", like the stocks, pillory, branding, running laps, and most forms of capital punishment. So, whether he is a reliable source or not, he does not support your claim that "corporal punishment" and "physical punishment" are coterminous.

-- http://law.jrank.org/ ("Free Legal Encyclopaedia") is a mystery. In most cases there is no way of checking its information because it cites very few sources. There is no indication as to who has written it. It is published by "Net Industries", whose website at http://www.netindustries.us/ is remarkably devoid of information as to who is behind it. If they were a respectable source, you would expect at least an "About Us" page.

Their page on "Corporal punishment - Prevalence" says "More serious forms of corporal punishment, including flogging and amputation..." but cites no source at all for the paragraph in question. In an earlier paragraph, where respectable sources *are* cited, it is clear that they are talking about flogging and caning.

-- Médecins Sans Frontières do indeed say "types of corporal punishment which are permitted under sharia, such as stoning and amputations". MSF are practising doctors, not scholars, and their expertise is in medicine, not penal affairs, so they can be forgiven for a poor choice of terminology.

-- User:Kevinkor2 has already noted that the International Committee of the Red Cross, by contrast, 'treats "corporal punishment" and "sharia amputations" as disjoint terms'.

-- The document by Elizabeth Gershoff, Report on Physical Punishment in the United States, says "physical punishment does not refer only to hitting children as a form of discipline; it also includes other practices that involve purposefully causing children to experience physical discomfort in order to punish them. Physical punishment thus also includes washing a child's mouth with soap, making a child kneel on sharp or painful objects (e.g., rice, a floor grate), placing hot sauce on a child's tongue, forcing a child to stand or sit in painful positions for long periods of time, and compelling a child to engage in excessive exercise or physical exertion." All of these "other practices" are indeed "physical punishments", as she says, but are not what is usually meant by "corporal punishment". Gershoff (a Professor of Social Work) is of course completely POV on this issue; the whole purpose of her document is to campaign against all forms of physical punishment. She is thus anything but an objective observer, so it is not surprising that she later attempts to conflate (without any supporting evidence) physical punishment with what in my view is one of its subsets, corporal punishment.

-- "A third (33%) reported cases of severe injury due to punishment" (www.endcorporalpunishment.org/), referring to a survey of children in Afghanistan. It doesn't says "due to *corporal* punishment", but even if it did, it wouldn't mean that injury was the intentional object of the exercise, as opposed to an accidental by-product thereof. (In any case, the figure seems a bit hard to believe. I wonder how they defined "severe injury".)

-- Alarics ( talk) 15:13, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Alarics and Becritical,

I changed the hatnote at the top of the article to read:

This article is about punishment involving pain, not causing disability. For forms of corporal punishment that cause disability, see physical punishment. For Blackadder episode, see Corporal Punishment (Blackadder).

This is a compromise:

• Readers who come to this article looking for the broader meaning of corporal punishment will be directed to physical punishment.
• This article will contain the narrower meaning of corporal punishment matching the sense of other articles with "corporal punishment" in their name:
  • Corporal punishment in the home
  • Judicial corporal punishment
  • School corporal punishment
  • Campaigns against corporal punishment

I believe both definitions of "corporal punishment" are valid. A Wikipedia reader might come to this article with either meaning in mind.

Comments are welcome!

-- Kevinkor2 ( talk) 19:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Good compromise, but I changed "not causing disability" to "not designed to cause injury" because it would also include (for instance) branding, which arguably is injurious, in that it presumably leaves a permanent scar, but does not actually disable the person, in the sense of taking away the use of their limbs. I also prefer "for other forms of physical punishment..." because the latter article also links to other punishment practices that are also non-injurious but still not involving striking/blows, and hence not really "corporal punishment" either, like the stocks, push-ups, etc. -- Alarics ( talk) 23:55, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

And by the way, there is nothing at all stopping the Physical punishment article from being expanded to explain more fully about the subset "Mutilation" in order to meet User:Becritical's concerns about inadequate coverage of e.g. certain Islamic countries' use of amputation as a punishment. -- Alarics ( talk) 00:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused by this article. The article school corporal punishment and this source say punishment in schools is against the law in Czech Republic. If this source is reliable can someone who knows how to please update that map? - filelake shoe 07:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the law was changed quite recently and the map does now need updating. -- Alarics ( talk) 07:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I have updated this file per this table. Gabbe ( talk) 07:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The first section of Corporal punishment in the home, all of Anatomical target, and most of Ritual and punishment deal with the technical side of corporal punishment. I would like to extract those elements or merge them into one new section dealing with the forms of corporal punishment. In other words, what I propose is to more clearly distinguish between the legality and the practical sides of corporal punishment (e.g. in the Modern use section they blend) I think this will clear up the structure. Are people sympathetic towards this? -- Gulpen ( talk) 23:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that the "Corporal punishment in the home" subsection in this article is only a summary because that subject has its own separate article. The present article, arguably too long already, is only supposed to be an overview and should go into detail only, if at all, for assertions (if any) that are broadly true of corporal punishment as a whole, across all its different purposes. We have separate articles Caning, Spanking, Birching, Slippering, and so on, for the technical details of the various different forms, as well as separate articles for Corporal punishment in the home and School corporal punishment and so on. I certainly don't think the present article should get any longer. I would be inclined to consider deleting the "Anatomical target" section altogether, since all of that is, or ought to be, in the separate articles for the different forms of CP. -- Alarics ( talk) 11:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

If I understand it correctly then, the subsections 'home', 'school', and 'judicial' are the three main categories that are used to define corporal punishment? If so, I think it is strange to present these definitions under the heading Modern use and, hence, I would propose to use a different title.

I suspect it was never intended that those subsections be part of "Modern use". I think that may have happened by accident because somebody inserted a new "Modern use" section in there with a high-level heading. But since the 3 sections in question do appear to be all about modern use, it still reads OK to me. -- Alarics ( talk) 17:37, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

At any rate, it would be clearer to separate the the 'defining' from the 'contemporary legality' of each of the subsections. It does not matter much whether this happens within one (e.g. 'home') subsection, or whether there are two (e.g. 'home') subsections in two different main sections. But I'm inclined to argue in favour of the latter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gulpen ( talk • contribs) 22:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It is not obvious to me why either of those would be clearer than what we have. What wording would you suggest? -- Alarics ( talk) 17:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The map on the article is outdated and failed to include every country that outlawed Corporal punishment. Japan explicitly outlawed it in 1947. Especially school based Corporal punishment. -- Akemi Mokoto ( talk) 11:55, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The 1947 ban was only for schools as far as we know, and this is already stated in School corporal punishment. If it has now been banned in the home as well, that needs to be stated with a reliable source at Corporal punishment in the home. But according to Giteacpoc that is not the case. http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/progress/reports/japan.html -- Alarics ( talk) 20:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The paragraph on the philosopher's view just expands on the common sense obviety that the acts of punishment aren't "ok" in themselves, but only depending on the context of punishment, "therefore" children wouldn't "learn" that using such methods of control outside this context. But that's not quite in tune with the actual research. "A study published last year in Child Abuse and Neglect revealed an intergenerational cycle of violence in homes where physical punishment was used. Researchers interviewed parents and children age 3 to 7 from more than 100 families. Children who were physically punished were more likely to endorse hitting as a means of resolving their conflicts with peers and siblings", and more. It's perhaps just as problematic that the other views in favor of corporal punishment are dealing specifically with the punishment of prisoners, not about punishment of children by their parents or school workers, and no clear distinction is drawn. -- Extremophile ( talk) 16:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I propose deleting that paragraph altogether and just leaving the links to the individual articles about different kinds of corporal punishment (parental, judicial, school) because, as you imply, the arguments in each case are of quite different kinds. -- Alarics ( talk) 18:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done -- Alarics ( talk) 18:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The map [11] must be updated to show Macedonia, Malta, Honduras. [12]. 2A02:2F0A:506F:FFFF:0:0:50C:855C ( talk) 18:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

And Brazil must be added too; it outlawed corporal punishment in 2014. [13] I' m removing the map until it is fixed. 2A02:2F0A:507F:FFFF:0:0:50C:DC92 ( talk) 10:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

This article states that, in all U.S. states, parental corporal punishment is legal. In 2012, the state of Delaware passed a law that bans infliction of physical pain on children, so this would make corporal punishment illegal there. Here is an article about the law: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/delaware-1st-state-to-jail-for-parents-who-use-spanking-to-discipline — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yfgy3 ( talk • contribs) 08:53, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

That press article is misleading. Corporal punishment itself was not banned by the new legislative changes. The law only deals with specific forms of violence against children. See discussion here: Talk:Corporal_punishment_in_the_home#Delaware. 2A02:2F0A:506F:FFFF:0:0:50C:DCFC ( talk) 12:32, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Who created the front map? It could easily be the most outdated map of all time! Should defiantly be removed. Jonas Vinther ( talk) 19:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

No, actually the map is more or less up to date, and I have restored it. I think you must have misunderstood it. Basically the situation is that all countries in Europe have banned corporal punishment in schools, but only some European countries have also banned it in the home. -- Alarics ( talk) 20:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I can assure you that that in Scandinavia (clearly shown on map) it's madly illegal, Alarics. Jonas Vinther ( talk) 22:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Besides, Alarics, the countries marked in green are supposed to show countries in which it's legal in both home and school. All members of the European Union is not allowed to use corporal punishment! Jonas Vinther ( talk) 22:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

That is precisely what the map is saying! Look at the caption to the map again. "Prohibited" means "illegal" and "not allowed". The map says the opposite of what you seem to think it means, because you have evidently misunderstood the word "prohibited". -- Alarics ( talk) 06:57, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh my God! I have made many stupid Wikipedia-mistakes in my life, but this might be the stupidest mistake I have ever made. Sorry, Alarics. Jonas Vinther ( talk) 15:28, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it should be mentioned that more than once corporal punishment is highly recommended in the Bible, e. g. Sprueche 3,12; 19,18; 23,13; 29,17

The prohibition of corporal punishment in a series of states therefore is conflicting with the bible what troubles traditional/fundamental parents with the question which laws have in this case the higher priority. -- Gkln ( talk) 17:28, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

The "History" section of the article already mentions that corporal punishment is endorsed in Proverbs 13:24 and Proverbs 23:13-14. Is that not sufficient? The wider question you raise, whether religious people should obey modern laws that they perceive to be in conflict with their beliefs, is a long way outside the terms of reference of this article. -- Alarics ( talk) 09:01, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

For a Psychology writing course, a classmate and I wrote an addition to this page on the topic of corporal punishment and its effects on child psychology. Specifically, we want to add information on psychological research regarding the emotional and cognitive implications of corporal punishment as well as how these effects translate into adulthood. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwestend ( talk • contribs) 21:32, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

That kind of research applies only to domestic CP and is already covered in Corporal punishment in the home#Research. This article is for facts about corporal punishment in general. -- Alarics ( talk) 21:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

The distinction made here between "corporal" and "physical" punishment is not very accurate. As far as "causing injury" is concerned, this article notes that Roman "lashes" could draw blood, and the injuries to slaves in the 19th-century American South from whipping are notorious. I doubt that anyone would argue that such injuries were purely accidental. Britannica lists mutilation, such as branding and blinding, as a form of corporal punishment, and amputation is covered in the same article. ^[1]

In fact, injury to the body is part and parcel of all forms of corporal punishment. Absent neurological dysfunction, pain is a direct result of either inflammation or injury to biological tissue (nociceptive pain). ^{[2] [3]} Corporal punishment designed to inflict pain does so by causing injury, however "light" or temporary. For instance, the red marks on a child's buttocks from spanking are the result of burst capillaries under the skin's surface. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 20:11, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

We went into all this at great length before. See further up this page. I do not think we should entertain these revisionist notions about what constitutes "injury". Transient red marks are not "injury" under any ordinary usage of the term. Such things as amputation and branding are physical punishments but they are not what is normally meant by "corporal punishment". -- Alarics ( talk) 07:32, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

That may be so; nevertheless, I am not proposing a new definition of "injury", but a change to this page to reflect published sources. There is no logical reason to exclude the harsh punishments mentioned from the definition of "corporal punishment". Meanwhile, Cambridge and Oxford Dictionaries define corporal punishment simply as "physical punishment". The two terms are interchangeable. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 09:28, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The International Association for the Study of Pain describes nociceptive (as opposed to neuropathic) pain as "pain that arises from actual or threatened damage to non-neural tissue". ^[4] It would seem that tissue injury is central to the phenomenon of pain, and by extension, any form of corporal punishment designed to inflict pain. But that is only incidental to the fact that published definitions (and descriptions) of CP are not limited with reference to injury; doing so only complicates what should be a simple subject. Corporal punishments are aimed at the body; some clearly produce injury while others may not. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 09:56, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The terminology "prohibited" and "not prohibited" in the map legend seem likely to lead to some confusion (see " What the fuck?", above). Perhaps less educated readers or those whose first language is not English might confuse prohibited with permitted. Banned might be a better choice for prohibited. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 21:09, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

For people whose English is not good, there is a whole separate "Simple English" version of Wikipedia. "Prohibited" is not an obscure or difficult word. -- Alarics ( talk) 07:35, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I would have to say that the above exchange is evidence to the contrary. Who knows how many other readers may have made a similar mistake? WP:STYLE states that " Plain English works best", meaning the avoidance of Latin-derived (really Norman-French-derived) words where possible, e.g. "prohibit", from prohibere. I see no disadvantage to using a simpler word here. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 10:37, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the use of plain English vs. unnecessarily complicated English. That doesn't have to mean avoiding Latin-derived words, of which day-to-day English contains many. "Prohibited" seems pretty plain to me. One Wikipedia user got into a momentary confusion, for which he or she quickly apologised. That can happen to any of us on an off day, but is not evidence of a lack of clarity. We need to avoid dumbing down. Are you sure "banned" means exactly the same thing? -- Alarics ( talk) 12:38, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Also, if you really insist on changing this, why not turn it round and use "permitted", so that green on the map becomes "not permitted in schools or in the home", blue becomes "permitted only in the home", and red becomes "permitted both in schools and in the home"? -- Alarics ( talk) 12:52, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge": that is Wikipedia's vision. My inspiration for editing Wikipedia is to promote freedom of thought through making factually correct information accessible to as many people as possible. I believe that the way to do this is to make Wikipedia verifiable and easy to understand. With that in mind, fears of "dumbing down" are misplaced, and in any event WP:STYLE emphasizes making Wikipedia "easier and more intuitive". I am not proposing to change the wording of the entire article, but simply to make the graphic easier to understand at a glance. Ban is used to mean "to forbid (=refuse to allow) something, especially officially", ^[1] "officially or legally prohibit...officially exclude (someone) from a place". ^[2] I don't see anything dumb about this word. The sense of "forbid" versus "physically exclude" should be apparent in context. And banned is more logical than permitted; among the countries which do not ban CP, not all have laws expressly permitting it. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 23:03, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

A preference for words of Germanic origin versus Latin wouldn't be sensible at every opportunity, but it is indicated as "often" being a feature of WP:STYLE's preferred Plain English. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 23:50, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I moved the definition of CP issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child to the article on campaigns against corporal punishment, since it seemed more pertinent there. - Coconutporkpie ( talk) 22:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)