paradigms of punishment

PARADIGMS OF PUNISHMENT


Punishment is a penalty for an action, behavior or attitude. The purpose of
punishment is to change the response of the individual to prevent future
occurrences of the same or similar actions. Methods of punishment are usually
directed at causing an undesirable result to the action. This can take many,
many forms from shunning to direct physical punishment. The means and actions
are almost infinitely variable.

As ground rules, where the punished is a child or person to whom the punishment
is intended as a correction of their own behavior, it is very important that
they be given options and a clear understanding of the reason for and expected
results of the punishment, and that they know and understand this prior to the
punishment and following the punishment. It is highly important that the
punishment be designed and carried out in such a way that no permanent or
unnecessary injury occurs to the child or adult, and that the punishment
carries sufficient pain or effect to cause remorse for the action.

For this paddling is a common historical and good form of punishment. In this
the buttocks are paddled, ideally with a softer material paddle that can cause
sharp pain via heat, but no deep or lasting injury. Some state laws regarding
paddling reinforce this. They require that all physical signs of the
punishment, i.e., redness or blistering, be gone within three days. This has
been covered in other areas, but again, the sensitivity to pain decreases with
age. Older people frequently do not even feel fractures or serious trauma.
Babies cry and experience extreme pain from many stimuli that would not cause
any pain to an older child or adult. Therefore the rule of no sign of the
punishment existing may be fine for teenagers and up, but for smaller children
it is too severe. A small child need only cry from physical punishment, and
force necessary to cause this. Most young children cry from a light pop on the
bottom or two, nothing more is necessary, and increased levels of intensity and
duration of a spanking should only be increased as the need for it to cause
crying and regret. So a child paddled or punished should not show any sign of
the discipline at all after a few minutes to hours as they grow up. An adult or
older kid that handles pain and needs a reminder to linger to instill regret is
different, and the guideline set by law in some venues makes sense. In any case
no physical evidence of a paddling should remain after three days in the most
severe forms of corporal punishment in my opinion.

The person paddled should be fully aware of the reason and expected changes in
behavior prior to the paddling. As well they should understand that they are
loved and the paddling is to correct their behavior, attitude or an action, and
is not directed at them as a person.

Paddling or other punishment is generally necessary where no remorse occurs, or
the person feels to regret other than being caught for doing something.
Speeding or running in the hall for example. We receive fines in adult life for
this, and reduce our speed. However, it is highly unlikely that any of us feel
any real repentance for speeding in which no one is hurt and we are driving
safely other than this penalty. The fines and threat of fines do prevent us
from speeding though. The same is true of children running in the halls at
school. If they did this, it would cause accidents and injuries, just as
speeding does. It is immoral, or wrong? NO!! So the kid is sorry they are
caught and paddled if that is the punishment, and will avoid running in the
hall, but there would be no remorse or behavior change without punishment.

Other things which have a moral point, stealing for example may need to be
punished physically at first in a child that does not have the concept of
stealing being wrong. However, as they mature, and develop a conscious about
such things, punishment is more and more unlikely because the morals of the
person prevent the behavior. Where these morals are not intact and yet formed,
punishment is more needed. This is the reason that punishment is almost always
a childhood thing. It is part of learning morays, and adapting to the values of
our culture. Once this is done, punishment is more rare, although usually more
severe.

One area of punishment that I woke up thinking about this morning was of this
nature. For most of us adults, it takes three weeks to break a pattern or
behavior. Smoking, etc., if the person quits for 21 days it is likely to work.
If they don't, they are far more likely to go back to smoking. Fitting
punishment for more sever crimes, and I do mean crimes here. This is not
applicable to running in the hall or speeding. I would restrict this form of
punishment to an alternative for things that would usually result in jail
sentences, or severe moral failures, adultery perhaps etc.

In correcting these sorts of behaviors, the punished party, their family and or
others that love them would be involved as well as teams of behavior
modification people that would work with them all intently for 21 days rather
than getting a year in jail etc. For adultery which is a death penalty crime in
most countries, this could be substituted, correcting the behavior of a loved
mate is far far better than killing them!! In fact this is strictly in
accordance with the Koran. The stoning of adulters is not! Arab custom and
older more pagan brutality was substituted for true Islamic teaching even in
Muslim countries. In the Koran it calls of a free person caught in adultery, or
fornication to receive 100 lashes. A slave gets 50. Since slavery is not very
common at this point, the 100 lashes would be the common penalty.

In my definition, paddling, 50-100 at one time is too much. For one too much
damage can be done to the buttocks, and the pain is excessive. What is the
desired result it the person having a good cry, pain in the buttocks necessary
to cause this, and possibly a sore bottom for up to three days to remind them
of their actions. 10-13 licks with a well designed paddle can cause this. What
if we follow the Koran and do the 100 lashes, but do it over 21 days, at three
day intervals. Properly done, the person would sit down and discuss the act,
come to a realization of their error, then have the same punishment every three
days over a 21 day period, with counseling and behavior modification, as well
as frank and open discussion of why they did it with the spouse and them
working together to prevent the need for such actions in the future as well as
correcting their own behavior. At the end of 21 days of such a procedure, with
7 good paddlings, crying, discussing and regretting it, and correcting the
causes and behavior patterns, it is far far more likely that the person would
not do the same thing again. Adultery this is clear enough. It would also work
for stealing and most other crimes against others or society in implanting long
term behavior modifications.

I think this form of behavior modification would also   be a good
judicial model. What if courts sentenced people for acts which require behavior
modification to a 21 day jail sentence with this program, rather than just
locking them up for a year or more for a post graduate education in crime?

In a judicial or group system, I strongly favor that all punishment be public.
A major factor in a lot of male crime is the macho image. Gang members and
leaders live and die by a tough code of ethics and behavior. Being bent over a
desk and paddled till they are in tears, then having to apologize for their
actions does not fit this mold. It would help deter others from doing the same
thing. It would deter some criminals that would face the gallows with bravado
and not change their actions because it would allow them to still look tough to
the end. They would change their actions if they had to be recorded and face
their peers with tears after a good paddling.

What do you think? This is just a proposal, not written in stone.
..Modifications, deletions and additions are welcome. I know there are good
studies on behavior modification, and I know that permissiveness in the homes
and schools with no discipline leads to a higher incidence of crime and
incarceration. I would like professional opinions on this. This sort of long
term punishment would again be for serious habitual sort of offences. A good
single paddling is all most kids need to keep them in line, and this kind of
prolonged punishment would likely be highly inappropriate for them, unless they
have a habitual behavior of a serious nature.

I hope you understand my direction here. I do not like giving physical
punishment, however, I appreciate that it works. In this area our society has,
in my opinion, gone completely goofy. I do understand that it needs to be
controlled and governed closely to prevent injury and excesses, but a good
spanking can work wonders and is often effective where no other form of
punishment would be, or is practical. Can a paddling be done abusively? I
certainly think so, and even think most may be, particularly if the person
punished has no idea what they did wrong, or the person giving it does it for
the release of their own frustrations. All of us have known people whose moods
roll. At one time you can burn down the kitchen and Mom will just laugh and
start cleaning it up. At other times she will spank you for looking at her
funny.

The key is to ALWAYS punish with love, after you have attained emotional
detachment and control, and ALWAYS punish for the benefit of the person
punished or others, not because of you own feelings, beliefs and emotions. It
this were ever set up in a legal system, for this reason I would very carefully
pick the jailers allowed to administer the paddlings to screen out all that
enjoyed the work too much, and this should be done anyway.

I remember, many years ago, I had a co-counselor in a Boy Scout troop. He
wanted to be a policeman. He worked out, practiced and did everything he could
to get on the LAPD. Every six months he took the test, and they sent him a
rejection without explanation. In talking to him we discovered that he always
told the psychiatrist on interview the following. The psychiatrist would ask
him why he wanted to be a policeman. He would tell him, "Because I want to kill
bad guys!" He thought it was a perfect answer. None of us who knew him ever
told him why he was being rejected. We thought it was better this way.

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