Why Is Corporal Punishment Legal

In particular, article 4 provides that physical violence against minors as a means of punishment in the context of their upbringing entails the consequences of article 1532 of the Civil Code. The explanatory memorandum to that article states, inter alia, as follows: « The provision of article 4 makes it clear that, according to modern pedagogical concepts, corporal punishment of children is not one of the penalties permitted by article 1518 of the Civil Code. It constitutes a case of abusive exercise of custody and therefore leads to the application of Article 1532 of the Civil Code. Under this section, the court may order any appropriate measure in such a case. « Any act that causes physical pain or discomfort to a minor shall be treated as physical violence for the purpose of punishing or controlling his or her conduct. » Disparities in school discipline have recently received some attention. The Department of Education urged schools to ensure that discipline is applied in a manner that is « without regard to a student`s personal characteristics, including race, color, national origin, religion, disability, ethnic origin, sex, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or English language learner status, homeless migrant or student » (U.S. Department of Education, 2014, p. 14). A report by the Council of State Governments` Justice Center highlighted the need for better oversight of discipline between subgroups on race, gender, and disability status (Morgan, Salomon, Plotkin & Cohen, 2014). The Discipline-Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative has published two letters calling for policy and practical initiatives to reduce inequalities in school discipline (Gregory, Bell, & Pollock, 2014; Losen, Hewitt, & Toldson, 2014). All these recent reports have focused on differences in suspensions, expulsions and physical limitations; None mentioned differences in corporal punishment. As long as corporal punishment is legal in schools in the United States, it is crucial that it be included in policy discussions about reducing demographic inequalities in discipline. The study also states that « states that allow corporal punishment have a higher percentage of children in the general population, higher rates of child poverty and infant mortality, lower college graduation rates, and lower education spending per student than states that have banned corporal punishment in schools. » « The Committee is concerned about the use of corporal punishment of children in schools.

Correctional facilities, the home and all forms of childcare at the federal, state and local levels. The Committee is also concerned about the increasing criminalization of students to address disciplinary problems in schools (arts. 7, 10 and 24). [49] Prohibited in foster homes; Legally permitted in seven group homes or licensed facilities, although the policy should not be enforced in all seven states Corporal punishment Public school staff in the United States are allowed to discipline children who are not related to them because they are treated as loco parentis or « instead of the parent » (Conte, 2000). As noted above, corporal punishment is permitted in schools under a 1977 Supreme Court decision known as Ingraham v. Wright. This case involved two Florida high school students who were beaten with a wooden paddle by their principal: one suffered a hematoma requiring medical attention, and the other was hit on the arms (while trying to protect himself) and lost the use of one arm for a week. The Supreme Court ruled that this corporal punishment violated neither the Eighth Amendment`s protection against cruel and unusual punishment nor the students` right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Ingraham decision that corporal punishment is constitutional allowed states to decide for themselves whether or not to allow corporal punishment in schools. To represent the geographic dispersion of corporal punishment, prevalence, and disparities, we used OCR data with school district and state boundaries using ArcGIS software (version 10.2.2; Esri, 2015).

This software allowed us to map the use of corporal punishment at the district or state level. Subjects tended to use spanking when they were angry and for trivial misdeeds, such as minor social transgressions by children. Mothers who beat tended to rely on spanking as punishment rather than using it as a « last resort. » .

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