Why Corporal Punishment Should Be Illegal

There are many reasons to why corporal punishment should be illegal and should stay illegal. Letting corporal punishment be illegal allows the growing generations to understand there are other way where they can deal with unwanted behaviour that do not use violence. This limits the violence that can increase because corporal punishment was used in the past on the child and this is because less violence seen, then less violence committed.

            In the history it deals with a lot of violence for example The Code of Hammurabi used a lot of violence to resolve conflicts, like it is said “an eye for an eye”. The way the courts deal with offences has changed from the past and upgraded to reasonable grounds where some of the rights are not violated. I believe it is better to have corporal punishment to stay illegal because it shows everyone how things can be dealt with in a calm and non-violent way.

Corporal Punishment in India

            Corporal punishment has a different value and law in every country, in some countries it shows it is not very important to give too much importance to this topic because it is not used as frequently as in other countries. In India there are a lot of cases that involve corporal punishment in schools every year. In India corporal punishment is illegal but yet still used because the law is not enforced in a way where there are severe consequences if that law is broken. The law that declares physical punishment is illegal is not an old law but a very newly adapted law and I believe it will take time for it to be completely adapted by everyone and understand why this law was enforced.

            This type of punishment was used in India for centuries and now observing the results of this punishment it sets out that there is no need for physical punishment because there are other types of punishments that can be use to reinforce a child’s behaviour. In India schools say they follow the law of no physical punishment but in reality in most schools it is not followed and corporal punishment is still used on children.

The Negative Effects of Corporal Punishment

In 2011 a study was done to see how corporal punishment on children effects the performance of the child and it was proven that children that went to schools that used corporal punishment performed worse in tasks that involved decision-making than children that did not go to schools that involved corporal punishment. As people may believe that the use of corporal punishment disciplines their children and teaches them to act in a certain way, it does not help in the future for them to become self- disciplined. Corporal punishment causes some severe side affects and some of them are long-term side effects that stay with the child.

When using corporal punishment on a child it can lead to brain damage, bodily damages, and anti-social behaviour and in some rare cases death. These are many of the reasons why corporal punishment should not be used on children for the correction of their behaviour. Corporal punishment teaches children not to act in a particular behaviour because it may risk them to be beaten, but something that it does not teach them is the reason why they should not act in such a way. It also adds a thought of violence in the child’s mind because it teaches them to act in a violent way towards someone that is weaker than them but be vulnerable to someone that is more powerful. This is where bullying comes from because it is said that bullies have a background of being bullied in the past and it encourages them to become a bully towards other people that are weaker than them. 

The History of Corporal Punishment

            Corporal punishment has a history in the past, which started off with being very harsh to coming to reasonable and acceptable grounds. The background of corporal punishment not only involved children getting hit, but also involved adults. People of higher authorities in the 18^th centuries often used flogging towards people with lower authorities that misbehaved in a way that disappointed the person in charge. After flogging had been stopped then teachers to discipline their students used birch twigs and the courts for smaller offences to discipline the accused also used them.

Teachers used corporal punishment towards their students to a very high and severe context and even in the workplace children were hit if they were being lazy and not completing the work that was asked to be completed. Different instruments were used to discipline their students such as rods, rulers, slippers and leather straps. In the 1860's there was a case in which a teacher had beaten his student to death because the student was being stubborn. This case lead the media to criticize schoolteachers and they called them names such as monstrous. After seeing the effects that were lead by corporal punishment it was doubted to how far it can help a child in a positive way. Corporal punishment was legal until the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries where it then became unconstitutional and the law was reinforced.