Some people only respond to corporal punishment

The argument

Punishment is supposed to change behaviour, and the systems in ordinary use assume that the prospect of losing something — a privilege, money, liberty — is enough to do it. For most people that assumption holds. The argument here concerns the people for whom it does not. Among children there are some for whom the standard sanctions simply do not register. A toy is confiscated and the child is unbothered; a privilege is withdrawn and nothing changes. The same pattern appears among adults, where some offenders are unfazed by the prospect of a fine or a jail sentence, having either absorbed such penalties before or reached a position where the threat carries no force. In both cases the sanction is applied correctly and the behaviour continues, which suggests the problem is not inconsistent enforcement but a mismatch between the penalty and the person. What follows is an argument from the exhaustion of alternatives rather than a general preference. Where the ordinary measures have been tried and have demonstrably failed, continuing to apply them is not restraint but abdication: the rule-breaking goes on, the people affected by it keep paying the price, and the institution responsible maintains the appearance of acting. Corporal punishment is reached for at that point because it does not depend on the person valuing what is being taken away. It is immediate, physical and unavoidable, and proponents of this position argue that for some individuals it is the only sanction that registers at all. On this reasoning corporal punishment need not be the standard response to every transgression in order to be worth retaining. It is the measure that works on the cases nothing else reaches, and a system without any such measure has no answer for them. That is why, on this view, it has a place in society and should be allowed.

Context

Everyone is different. A one-size-fits-all punishment model is ineffective. Some people respond better to corporal punishment methods. Therefore corporal punishment should be permitted.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The law is designed to protect everybody. Therefore, it would be reckless to hand corporal punishment powers to authority figures just because it might work in some cases. For every case that it might have the intended effect, there would be hundreds more where it caused lasting psychological damage, had no impact on behaviour modification, and left recipients more violent and aggressive than they were before.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Corporal punishment, when used incorrectly, undermines law and order. [Rejecting P2] Society must also have the ability to protect everyone.