Corporal punishment is a strong deterrent

The argument

Proponents argue that a short, sharp painful shock is the easiest way to change behaviour, and they ground the claim in something they take to be more reliable than persuasion. An instinct of self-preservation has driven our evolution over thousands of years, and on this reasoning the same instinct will drive us to change our behaviour when subjected to corporal punishment. The appeal of the method, in their view, is that it does not depend on the subject accepting an argument, being in a receptive mood, or respecting the authority delivering it — it works on a response that is already there. The evidence offered is what happened after the practice was withdrawn. In countries where corporal punishment has been banned in schools, like the UK, teachers are reporting deteriorating classroom behaviour. Proponents read that as a natural experiment: the deterrent was removed and the conduct it had been restraining reappeared, which indicates that for all of its flaws, corporal punishment is an effective way to correct poor behaviour and get people to behave correctly. They argue the merits of corporal punishment extend beyond the classroom. Crime has increased drastically since the end of corporal punishment in 1981, and by 1997, 16 years after corporal punishment was removed from classrooms, crime had risen by 67%. In Sweden, violent crime has risen since a no-spanking ban was introduced in homes. The lag in the first case is treated as part of the argument rather than a weakness in it: the children disciplined under the older regime had grown up by then, so an effect on adult conduct would only be expected to appear at that remove. Taken together, proponents hold, all of these global trends point to the fact that corporal punishment is an effective way to modify behaviour and induce discipline, and therefore that it should be allowed.

Context

Humans modify their behaviour to avoid pain. When a child touches a candle and burns its hand, it knows not to touch the candle again. Therefore, using pain as a punishment will help deter people from committing the same offence again.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There is no evidence to suggest that corporal punishment leads to a reduction in negative behaviour. There is substantial evidence that points to the contrary. Those that are subjected to violent punishment are more likely to be violent and aggressive to others. Correlation also does not surmount to causation. Just because some teachers have anecdotally observed that classroom behaviour or crime rates are increasing does not automatically mean that an end to corporal punishment methods is to blame. No studies have effectively proven a causal link between the two phenomena. If there was a correlation between corporal punishment and reduced violent crime, then, in theory, places which retained corporal punishment would have lower murder rates. This is not the case. The southern states of the United States, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia have kept corporal punishment in schools but have some of the highest murder rates in the United States.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The instinct described predicts avoidance of the punisher rather than improvement in conduct. Aversive stimuli suppress behaviour while the threat is present and generalise poorly, which is why the effect tends to end when the adult leaves the room. [Rejecting P2] The research points the other way. Children subjected to physical punishment show more aggression and worse behavioural outcomes on average, and the argument offers no study against that body of work. [Rejecting P3] These are correlations across decades in which almost everything else also changed, and they fail the obvious test: jurisdictions that retained corporal punishment in schools do not show correspondingly lower rates of violent crime — several have among the highest.