Sore Subject: Does Caning Hurt Juvenile or Society More?

We had a math teacher in eighth grade who could best be described as a no-nonsense kind of guy. While he was explaining something to us on the first day of school, the class clown cracked wise.

Without saying a word, the teacher walked over to the clown’s desk and asked for his textbook. Upon receiving it, the teacher stepped behind the student and delivered a forceful two-hand backhand to the back of his head.

Thus ended a budding career of a class clown.

That reminiscence comes to mind in light of the controversy over the imminent “caning” of an 18-year-old American in custody in Singapore. The young man went on a spray-painting jag and has been sentenced to a flogging. He will receive six blows from a moistened rattan cane. A news story said recipients often go into shock after the third stroke and are usually left with permanent scars. Previous stories have said there is very little graffiti in Singapore.

I’ve heard a lot of people taking guilty pleasure over the young man’s fate. So frustrated is the American public over rampant crime that many people seem willing to consider just about anything. Caning? Hey, why not?

I asked a Juvenile Court judge about that, starting off with the presumption that, despite our government’s formal request for leniency for the young man, lots of Americans might be silently applauding the Singapore justice system.

“It does have a threshold attraction to us all,” the judge said, who asked not to be identified. “We all are frustrated about graffiti and juvenile pranks and delinquency and all that goes with it. And we all know that we must have accountability in our system and that we feel it is just slipping away from us.

“I guess people have always felt that way but, legitimately, it’s more that way now. So we find it attractive to have prompt meaningful punishment on people who spray graffiti or (do things like) pickpocket or shoplift.”

I knew there was a “but” coming. “It has an initial attraction and I share that,” the judge said, “and so does everyone else, I suspect. On the other hand, life just isn’t that uncomplicated. I believe parents should have a right to spank their children, and I think most people think that. . . . But do you want other people to spank your child? And that gets into the problem of, when do you spank them? How often? How hard? With a belt or with a hairbrush?”

As for caning? “Effective? Well, probably,” the judge said, “but it’s the kind of thing that crosses the line. Our system of justice--and you can go back to the common law as it developed from England--recoils from it.”

Constitutionally speaking, caning probably would be banned as “cruel and unusual.”

I cited the corporal punishment that I remember from my school days. At that same junior high, teachers had a wooden paddle that was used on wayward students.

“We must have accountability,” the judge said. “If you’re going to school, what discipline tools do they have? Suspension? Everyone knows they (students) have to continue to go to school, so there isn’t much teeth in that. And we’re taking away the ability to discipline.”

The judge said he doesn’t necessarily object, for example, to having a principal paddle or spank a child if a parent is present. Or, to bring a parent to school to administer the punishment.

“The word caning offends me,” the judge said. “That is excessive on every day of the week, but some form of switch or (corporal punishment) by hand, depending on how old the person is, I think is something we could explore. The problem is in keeping it from going to excess.”

Caning probably has won plaudits in America because we can distance ourselves from it. Singapore officials can satisfy our primal instinct by meting out punishment, while allowing us to ease our consciences because we weren’t the ones to administer it.

“The concept (of harsh punishment) is fine, but control is what causes the problem,” the judge said. “The best government, practically speaking, would be a benevolent dictatorship. . . . The problem is to decide who’s benevolent and who isn’t.”

I asked the judge to forget propriety for a moment and consider whether caning would deter juveniles.

“I think it would deter the individual person--if it hurt and if they knew they would have that hurt visited upon them again if they were to (repeat the offense). And to the degree their classmates find out about it and look at the bruises, it may well have a deterrent effect. That’s the positive part, and the negative part is that it’s over the line. I think most of Western society has made that same decision.”

It’s probably best that we not put caning up to a vote in America these days. I know at least one retired junior high math teacher who would heartily endorse it.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.