Revival of a Controversial Debate

When Adrian Peterson, a running back on the Minnesota Vikings, was charged with child injury of his son after disciplining him it revived the controversial argument of the use of corporal punishment, and whether to use it in schools.

Corporal punishment is defined as the lawful physical punishment of children delivered by teachers and other authorities in both private and public schools. This kind of punishment includes, but is not limited to: spanking, flogging, paddling, and swatting.

While currently prohibited in California and 30 other states, it still exists in 19 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.

In these states, except some private schools, parent permission is required.

81% of 1,000 adults polled believed that spanking by hand should be legal. Close to half of these individuals place confidence in the effectiveness, according to a 2014 poll conducted by The Huffington Post.

In 1977 the Supreme Court court was asked to hear a case called Ingraham v. Wright (see related article) The court said corporal punishment didn’t violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, which was created to protect those who committed a crime, not to students on the matter of physical discipline. The Decision left regulation of this method up to individual states.

According to the Huffington Post, a study from 2005 and 2006 showed where the most students get hit in public schools, and the highest percentage of the students get hit.

Texas: 51,170, Mississippi: 38,214, Alabama: 34,097, Arkansas: 22,575, Georgia: 18,404, Oklahoma: 15,153, Tennessee: 14,901, Louisiana: 11,091, and Florida: 7,303.

Mississippi 7.5%, Arkansas: 4.7%, Alabama 4.5%, Oklahoma 2.3%, Louisiana 1.7%, Tennessee 1.5%, Georgia and Texas tie with 1.1 %, and Missouri with 0.6%.

A more recent study from 2010 reports that on average, 838 children were hit in public school each day. Each state has it’s own regulations regarding the amount of force a teacher can use. In Tennessee, for example, lasting “bodily harm” is not permitted.

Based on studies, individuals in favor of corporal punishment, more specifically spanking, tend to believe that physical punishment is the most effective form of discipline.

Is this because for most parents, spanking was a regular occurrence in their childhood? Or because the research to base the decision of what discipline form to use was unavailable? Research from an article by the Huffington Post proves corporal punishment is not for everyone, nor is it a recommended way to reprimand a child.

Also, most corporally punished children who are spanked at least once a month for three years tend to have less grey matter in the frontal lobe of their brain, which means their chances of developing addictions, depression, and other personality disorders are higher.

In 2010, Tulane University reported that children who are often spanked at age three turn out more aggressive at age five than their peers who are not spanked.

While most states have discontinued corporal punishment in public schools, 19 still participate. Among these, Texas is the stand out with the highest numbers of reported incidents.

The Paddling That Started it All

In 1977, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled corporal punishment in public schools is not a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, in a case by the name of Ingraham v Wright.

This decision angered adolescents and parents across the United States, ultimately catapulting the issue of physical violence used as a discipline method in public schools to the national level.

After an assembly at Charles R. Drew Junior High School on October 6,1970, 14 year old James Ingraham was incriminated by school officials for not returning to class swiftly.  When brought to the principal’s office, he refuted the charges against him.

Willie J. Wright, Jr., the school’s principal, did not believe Ingraham and requested that he bend over to receive his punishment. The 14 year old refused to be paddled and was then coerced by two assistants of the principal. Lemmie Deliford and Solomon Barnes constrained Ingraham over Wright’s desk where he was paddled over 20 times.

The caustic beating resulted in Ingraham suffering from a hematoma. A hematoma is a blood filled swelling from a break in a blood vessel. He was instructed by physicians to rest for 11 days.

Ingraham and his parents were not the only ones angered, protesters and students organized a strike outside of the school.

Ingraham and his parents sued Charles R. Drew Junior High School on November 2, 1976. They sued for “cruel and unusual punishment” against the principal and assistants, as well as a “loss of liberty”. They wanted “relief” from school official’s chosen punishment: paddling from a wooden paddle.

Their claim was that they had been subjected to a form of cruel and unusual punishment against their constitutional rights. The evidence presented proved particularly harsh.

A Florida court met with the principal, assistant principal, and the other assistant involved. They claimed that the punishment was not meant to be belittling or embarrassing. The court then ruled that corporal punishment was legitimate in that state– and so it remained in effect.

Later the case landed in the Supreme Court where, writing for the majority, Justice Lewis Powell said that a punishment can not be “cruel or unusual” if a majority of Americans clearly approve of it.

Also, the Supreme Court claimed the Due Process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment is not necessary in these cases if the state reported in has not prohibited the practice.

Since 1977 the Supreme court has repeatedly denied judicial review on whether school corporal punishment violates the constitution. Currently, 19 states can still practice it, while 31 states have prohibited corporal punishment.

California Joins 8 Others in Ban in 1986

In response to the Ingraham v. Wright case, California modified its education code to include a prohibition of corporal punishment in 1986, making it one of 31 states that does not allow corporal punishment in schools. If corporal punishment is exercised in the state, the offender can be charged with either child abuse or assault and battery.

California laws define corporal punishment as intentional physical pain on a pupil by an adult employed in a public school. This does not include acts of breaking up fights or preventing vandalism and damaged property.

However, it is important to note that California’s law against corporal punishment mentions nothing about the exercise in private schools, only public.

Alaska, California, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Utah and Washington allow corporal punishment in private schools even though they are banned in public schools.

Although these states allow corporal punishment in private schools, each private school must adopt a written policy governing the use of corporal punishment.

California’s physical child abuse laws are covered under Penal Code § 273d.

The Penal Code § 273d reads, “any person who willfully inflicts upon a child any cruel or inhuman corporal punishment or an injury resulting in a traumatic condition is guilty of a felony.”

This offense may be punished with one year in county jail, two to six years in state jail, or a fine up to $6,000.

Texas School Districts Prove Most Active in Disciplinary Measures

With 49,157 cases reported as of 2006, Texas is the most active state in the exercise of corporal punishment.

According to a study conducted by the U.S Department of Education, each Texas school district administers an average of 120 physical punishments per year.

Paddling is the most common form of punishment in Texas, with 36,752 cases reported. Compared to 4,256 paddling cases in Florida and a 1,284 in Kentucky, the Texas statistics are staggering.

The Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties Union (HRW/ACLU) state that “teachers or principals may strike students three or more times on the buttocks or upper thighs with a wooden paddle, which is often 15 inches long. In some cases, paddles are made from shaved-down baseball bats. Students may also be hit with a hand or taped-together rulers.”

In Texas, paddling is the most common form of punishment and most of the time the students are told to bend over and place their hands on the desk to receive the beating. However reports have shown that some adults have actually pinned children face down on the floor to physically beat them.

The HRW released an interview conducted with the parents of an allegedly paddled student in Texas.

“The first swat knocked [my son] down…when he fell, the principal said he had five seconds to get back up, or he’d start all over again…it probably took him a minute and a half to get up again. They gave him two more swats. Then the principal had to to go the nurses office to get the asthma inhaler, {my son} couldn’t breathe…When he came home from school, my wife found the marks on him. He had severe bruising on his buttocks and on his lower back,” said the father.

In this particular case, the parents had not been previously informed of the corporal punishment policy, and they had not given the school approval to punish their child in such a way.

However the Texas Education Code Chapter 37 states that corporal punishment is allowed “to discipline a student. The exception to this rule is when a parent or guardian with custody or control of a child has previously provided a written, signed statement forbidding the use of corporal punishment to discipline the child.”

Texas outlawed the physical punishment of state prisoners in 1941, yet students may still be lawfully beaten in the year 2015.

The People Opposed to Paddling Students (POPS), based in Texas, has proposed campaigns to abolish corporal punishment in the state, but at this point in time no progress has been made.