Too Cruel for Cons but Not for Kids? : Atty. Gen. Lungren says paddling--banned in the prisons--would be legal in the schools

California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren has concluded that paddling misbehaving schoolchildren and juvenile graffiti vandals would be constitutional. Opinion is divided on that point, but one thing, it seems to us, is clear: It would be wrong.

Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) lost in his attempt last year to have the Legislature approve paddling, but he has promised to introduce two measures next year to permit that form of corporal punishment in the schools and the courts.

Legislative legal opinions on the constitutionality of paddling have differed. Lungren’s position further complicates the matter and makes it a cinch that any paddling law would be challenged in court. Thus such ill-conceived legislation probably would lead to nothing but a waste of time and money.

Conroy offered his original bill after an American teen-ager last year was subjected to caning, a vicious, barbaric escalation of paddling.

Even were paddling ultimately found to be constitutional, it is unwise. There are serious questions about the effectiveness of corporal punishment as a deterrent, and offenses such as graffiti vandalism lend themselves to sentencing that fits the crime.

A better punishment would be to require offenders to undo their damage and to fine them when warranted. Require them to erase their scribblings from walls and overpasses and to remove the graffiti of others as well. Remove the eyesores. Make the punishment swift and certain.

In Orange County, scores of people sentenced to community service for nonviolent crimes have whitewashed hundreds of thousands of square feet of walls in the first year of an anti-graffiti campaign. That is an appropriate punishment, as is the current practice of having other petty criminals pick up litter from the sides of freeways.

Courts have barred paddling in prisons, ruling it is cruel and unusual. Lungren says it could be allowed in schools and courts under close supervision. Too cruel for hardened cons but OK for the children of California?