Corporal punishment can be administered easily

The argument

Part of the case for corporal punishment is not about what it does to the person punished but about what the alternatives cost everyone else. Punishment systems are not free. In a school, a drawn-out disciplinary process pulls the student out of lessons for as long as it runs, occupies teachers who should be teaching, and generates meetings, paperwork and review at every stage. In wider society the same pattern operates at far greater expense: investigations, hearings, supervision and custody are paid for out of the public purse, and the resources they consume are communal resources that could have gone elsewhere. Corporal punishment avoids almost all of that. It requires no extended process, no custody and no administrative apparatus to sustain it. A transgression occurs, the punishment is delivered, and the matter is closed — in minutes rather than weeks, at negligible cost, and without removing anyone from school or work in the meantime. Proponents of this position argue that the immediacy is a benefit in itself as well as a saving, since a sanction that follows directly from the act is more clearly connected to it than one arriving after months of procedure. The conclusion drawn is a practical one rather than a claim about desert. Given that some system of punishment is necessary, there is a shared interest in the system being one that can actually be operated: cheap enough to apply consistently, quick enough not to disrupt the institution applying it, and simple enough that minor transgressions are dealt with rather than ignored because the process is not worth starting. On this reasoning corporal punishment is the form of sanction best suited to those requirements, and the ease with which it can be administered is itself a reason to allow it.

Context

Long and drawn out punishments are not beneficial for the transgressor or the victim. Corporal punishment can be administered quickly, allowing all parties to put the incident behind them and work on reconciliation and self-improvement.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The long term costs of corporal punishment are substantial. It leads to increased mental illness, including anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse. These mental health disorders take their toll on health systems and require substantial government spending. Just because corporal punishment is quick and cheap to administer, doesn't mean the effects aren't long-lasting and costly.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The long-term costs of corporal punishment are high.