FLOGGING AND BIRCHING

Evening Star, Issue 22954, 11 May 1938, Page 11

FLOGGING AND BIRCHING

ABOLITION URGED " ULTIMATE SANCTION " FOR PRISON INDISCIPLINE The Departmental Committee appointed last year to consider the question of corporal punishment in the penal systems of England and Wales and of Scotland has recommended that the use of birching and flogging as a court penalty should be entirely abandoned. The committee is satisfied that it is essential to hold in reserve, as an ultimate sanction, the .power to impose corporal punishment for serious offences against discipline in prisons. Stating that it has come to the conclusion that corporal punishment is not a suitable or effective method of dealing with young offenders, the committee recommends the repeal of all the existing powers of courts of summary jurisdiction to order such offenders to be birched. It suggests, however, that consideration should be given to the question whether the juvenile courts might not be given further powers de-, signed to enable them to deal more effectively with cases in which a young offender does not require prolonged supervision or training but merely needs some form of sharp punishment which will operate effectively as a deterrent. The abolition of the powers of superior courts to impose sentences of corpora] punishment will call for the repeal of various sections of a substantial list of existing Acts, some ol them dating far into the past. The repeal, for instance, is recommended of a provision in the Diplomatic Privileges Act, 1708, authorising the infliction of corporal punishment on persons instituting, or assisting in the prosecution of, certain actions at law against Ambassadors or their servants. THE TREASON ACT. It is not considered that corporal punishment is an appropriate penalty for indecent exposure or other miscellaneous offences under the Vagrancy Acts, and repeal is also recommended of a provision in the Treason Act, 1842, which authorises corporal punishment as a penalty for aiming a firearm a» the Sovereign. As regards other offences for which flogging is a possible penalty under the existing law, the committee says it is not satisfied that the alternative punishment of a long sentence of imprisonment or penal servitude is so ineffective as a deterrent that it is essential, for the protection of society, to retain whatever further element of deterrence may be provided by the fear of an additional sentence of corporal punishment. and they accordingly recommend repeal in respect of the offences of importuning by male persons, procuring, living on the earnings of prostitution, garrotting, and robbery with violence. In the case of prison offences the committee, while proposing that corporal punishment should be held in

reserve as'an ultimate sanction, recommends modification of present law and practice. All- classes of male convicted prisoners, it is considered, should be equally liable—some are now exempt —to corporal punishment for the three offences of mutiny, incitement to mutiny, and gross personal violence to an officer or servant of the prison. The maximum punishment should be reduced to 18 strokes, either of the birch or of the cat-o’-nine tails, for prisoners over 21, and for prisoners under that age 12 strokes or the birch. When corporal punishment is imposed no additional punishment should be ordered except forfeiture of remission of stage marks. BORSTAL DISCIPLINE.

The committee does not consider it essential to retain the existing power to order corporal punishment for serious offences against discipline in Borstal institutions, and recommends repeal. The committee, of which Mr Edward Cadogan was chairman, examined 72 witnesses. In the body of the report the members state that in coming to the conclusion that the balance of advantage lies on the side of abolishing the existing powers of summary courts to use corporal punishment as a method of dealing with young offenders, they have not been influenced by arguments based merely on an emotional objection to corporal punishment, and they expressly dissociate themselves from the extreme views commonly put forward by some of those who recommend abolition. They also make it clear that their conclusions are not based on any objection in principle to all use of corporal punishment as a method of correction for children. Corporal punishment as a court penalty stands, it is submitted, on an entirely different footing from corporal punishment by a parent or a schoolmaster. When corporal punishment is administered by the parent there is a relation of mutual affection between the child and the person who punishes him. In school the boy feels at least respect and often affection for the schoolmaster. _ In the home the boy realises that he is being punished for his own good and in the school he understands that the punishment is a part of the discipline which he accepts. With regard to birching by order of a summary court it is noted that there is a very real danger that a boy who has been birched may be regarded as a hero among companions of his own age. . , , , The numbers of birchmgs ordered by courts of summary jurisdiction in England and Wales were 3,385 in 1900 and only 166 in 1936. The fall during the period of 36 years was steady, except for a marked rise during the war. In 1917 there were 5,210 birchmgs. USE AS DETERRENT. Concerning corporal punishment by order of Courts of Assize and other superior courts, the committee reports that “ after examining all the available evidence we have been unable to find any body of facts or figures showing that the introduction, of a power of flogging has produced a decrease in the number of the offences for which it may be imposed, or that offences for which flogging may be ordered have tended to increase when little use was made of the power, to order flogging or to decrease when the power was exercised more frequently.* “ We are not satisfied that corporal punishment has that exceptionally

effective influence as a deterrent which is usually claimed) for it by those who advocate its use as a penalty for adult offenders.”'

Concerning the physical effects of corporal punishment the committee says that there is no special danger in birching, and it has had no evidence of any brutality or cruelty in its administration. It is also stated that the rigours of a judicial flogging are often exaggerated by some of the opponents of corporal punishment. SLIGHT INJURIES ONLY. “ The tails of the cat-o’-nine tailsare not knotted, and there is no truth in the suggestion that blood) flows freely during he infliction of the punishment. Both the cat and the birch are apt to break the skin, but they, cause only minor superficial which bleed only to a small extent.. Simple emergency dressings are sometimes applied, but the local physical effects of the punishment seldom require any special medical treatment. “In 343 cases of corporal punish* ment administered in English prisons during the 10 years (1925-34), there were only four occasions on which the prisoner had to be detained in the prison hospital after the punishment for physical reasons connected) with the punishment, and in only one pf those cases was the prisoner kept in hospital fpr more than one day. We have not had evidence of any case in which corporal punishment produced any lasting physical'consequences.” It is added, however, that corpora! punishment is purely punitive, and is out of accord with those modern ideaj which emphasise the need! for using such methods of penal treatment a( give an opportunity for subjecting the offender to reformative influences.