Youth’s Hometown Backs Caning in Vandalism

Michael Fay, the American youth sentenced to be caned in Singapore, got little sympathy in his hometown Friday where a poll found residents backing the lash nearly two to one.

“If Michael Fay was my son, I’d cane the hell out of him myself,” one resident told the Dayton Daily News, which conducted a call-in telephone poll on the issue.

Of 2,270 people who called the newspaper, 1,442 approved of the caning while 828 did not.

“If we had caning here in American schools, I bet children would listen to the adults and have respect for them. I say go for it!” a woman told the newspaper. “Cane every single one who doesn’t have respect and I bet they’ll learn real quick.”

Fay, 18, grew up in Kettering, near Dayton and his father still lives there.

Fay was sentenced March 3 to six strokes of the cane, four months’ jail and a fine of $2,000 for spray-painting cars and other offenses. He is in a Singapore prison pending an appeal for clemency on his sentence to President Ong Teng Cheong.

The intensely painful punishment, a common one in Singapore for crimes ranging from rape to vandalism, is administered with a split rattan rod that leaves its victims bleeding and sometimes scarred for life.