[HN Gopher] It's legal to hit children in school in 19 American ...
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It's legal to hit children in school in 19 American states
Author : MoSattler
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-01-21 22:09 UTC (51 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Hitting kids usually isn't acceptable or productive. But
| sometimes, rarely, it is appropriate. For instance, if a large
| kid is beating up a smaller kid, it _may_ be appropriate to give
| the bully a small taste of what he 's dishing out. A few spanks
| does more harm to their dignity than anything else but gets the
| point across. Of course I wouldn't tolerate actual beating of
| children.
|
| The one time my father ever spanked me was after I attacked my
| little brother with a wiffle ball bat. I don't hold even the
| slightest grudge against him for that. On the other hand, my
| grandfather used to beat my father severely for things his
| younger brothers did wrong, under the understanding that his sons
| would punish each other if he punished one of them. That was
| clearly over the line, and my father resolved to never raise his
| own kids like that. And he didn't.
|
| Should teachers be doing this though? I'm not sure. Teachers
| often don't have enough information to know when it is or isn't
| appropriate to spank a child. They don't _really_ know what 's
| going on in that kid's home-life. But maybe it is sometimes
| appropriate when they witness particularly egregious bullying at
| school.
| tptacek wrote:
| It is absolutely not appropriate to physically assault a minor
| to retaliate for them assaulting somebody else. We don't even
| tolerate that logic among adults.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Corporal punishment should be used more often for adults. It
| is more equitable than fining people (even when those fines
| are scaled with wealth), and it does less damage to society
| than imprisonment. Imprisonment should be reserved for cases
| in which the public needs to be protected from the offender.
|
| Basically, Singapore has the right idea.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _more equitable than fining people_
|
| Rich kids don't get beaten.
|
| > _Singapore has the right idea_
|
| See above.
|
| Corporeal punishment shares due process issues with the
| death penalty. If you beat the wrong guy, it's harder to
| undo than unlocking the prison door.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| You can't retroactively unimprison a man. The time you
| took from him can never be returned.
|
| Anyway, consider this _common_ scenario in America: A man
| misses his child support payments. Do you, fine him,
| demanding money he doesn 't have, which should otherwise
| have gone towards his child support payments? That
| doesn't work. Do you imprison him for a month, so he
| loses his job and can't make future payments? That harms
| the kids he's supposed to be making payments to, but is a
| common 'solution' used by American courts.
|
| Better to cane the man and set him free the same day so
| he can continue to work and pay off his debts.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _can 't retroactively unimprison a man. The time you
| took from him can never be returned._
|
| But you can return the time unserved. It's also easier to
| turn time into money damages than pain.
| [deleted]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| We kill people who kill people.
| spankalee wrote:
| We shouldn't
| nine_k wrote:
| If it's needed to protect the victim during the assault,
| yes.
|
| Otherwise, a life sentence, with the right to appeal, is
| more error-proof.
| jart wrote:
| There are no circumstances in which it is appropriate to strike
| a child, you monster. Hitting children shows a real failure of
| imagination, that only the stupidest people would choose as a
| means of punishment.
| Swizec wrote:
| > There are no circumstances in which it is appropriate to
| strike a child
|
| What if they're pointing a loaded gun at you? Think I'd
| rather hit the kid than get shot ...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/virginia-school-
| shooting/i...
|
| Or coming at you or another student with an axe?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Valley_High_School_attac.
| ..
|
| There's probably more examples we can find and I agree they
| are very rare. But there certainly are circumstances where
| the right action, in the moment, is to strike a person no
| matter their age.
| sfpotter wrote:
| What would hitting a child accomplish in either of those
| cases?
|
| If you're able to disarm the child or remove everyone in
| the vicinity to safety, would you still feel the need to
| beat them? To what end?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I don't think you deserve a down vote because it sounds like
| you mean well, but you're wrong: kids who physically intimidate
| usually do so _because_ they face violence or threat of it at
| home, so it 's normalized.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| A lot of people are just born bad and the best we can hope is
| to keep them in line with fear of punishment.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _kids who physically intimidate usually do so because they
| face violence or threat of it at home, so it 's normalized._
|
| I don't know about "usually" but I know that it's _sometimes_
| the case, and that is main reason hesitant to say that
| teachers should be allowed to do this. They don 't know
| what's going on at that kid's home.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Hitting kids usually isn't acceptable or productive. But
| sometimes, rarely, it is appropriate.
|
| I disagree that these two sentenves can simultaneously be true;
| punishment that is not productive is, _ipso facto_ , not
| appropriate.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _usually ... rarely_
|
| There is no contradiction here.
| sfpotter wrote:
| Please read the other responses to your comment and consider
| the possibility that you are wrong.
|
| Hitting children is never OK regardless of the form it takes.
| Context makes no difference. There is always a better option.
| Hitting children is the recourse of the lazy and thoughtless.
| If you think you MUST physically discipline a child, it's
| because you haven't considered sufficiently many options and
| thought of something better. It is a failure of imagination on
| your part. DON'T DO IT.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| They brought back spanking when I was in high school.
|
| Was kinda strange (and ineffective) at that age, but totally
| better than in school suspension.
|
| _I opted in_ for it twice (uniform code violations) over iss
| until my parents said no, he should go to iss, he 's not learning
| his lesson lol.
|
| As a kid I was spanked a few times, it was never that the
| spanking that hurt, just the fear of getting in trouble.
|
| Conflating spanking with "hitting" seems disingenuous.
|
| Personally some people I interact with today should have been
| spanked, or raised better in general.
|
| And no I'm not talking about not violating dress codes etc, it's
| fine to break the rules if you're not hurting anyone. But there's
| a lot of bad people that would have benefitted from discipline.
| diego_moita wrote:
| Well, you are the evidence that "spanking" is wrong.
|
| You trivialize brutality and violence.
|
| That makes you no better than the people you want to be
| spanked. That makes you no better than your compatriots at Abu-
| Ghraib.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| First, you don't know me. If you want to respond to what I
| said go ahead, but keep the ad hominem to yourself.
|
| Second, if you're coupling torture with a slap on the bum
| then maybe _your_ world view is distorted.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| > Conflating spanking with "hitting" seems disingenuous.
|
| How can you define spanking without using a term like
| "hitting?"
|
| > it's fine to break the rules *if you're not hurting anyone*
|
| seems odd to have the person in authority return the favor by
| hurting the kids as punishment
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| > How can you define spanking without using a term like
| "hitting?"
|
| You call it spanking, or slapping on the bum.
|
| Hitting colloquially gives the impression of a closed-fist.
|
| > seems odd to have the person in authority return the favor
| by hurting the kids as punishment
|
| The world is not fair. You can pick and choose rules based on
| a moral code but things like dress code, drugs, etc. are the
| institutional rules and they have setup consequences, agree
| with them or not.
|
| And if you're hurting the child you aren't spanking, you're
| beating.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Conflating spanking with "hitting" seems disingenuous.
|
| Spanking is intentional hitting for the purpose of inflicting
| pain; your attempt to distinguish them is disingenuous.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. all I can say is .. lay a hand on my kid and you best have
| your affairs in order.
| themitigating wrote:
| That's whether or not the parents agree.
| MoSattler wrote:
| Parents are not really asked, though. Parent's consent is
| assumed, unless they explicitly opt their children out.
|
| > Parents can put their children on the "no paddle list"--a
| practice encouraged by a school in Kentucky if the child
| "bruises easy", suffers from severe depression or has been
| physically abused--but amid the back-to-school chaos many
| forget to submit the necessary form.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > or has been physically abused
|
| Literally adding insult to injury and completely seeing
| through their own policy in one line item. "Let us know if
| your child has been abused before so we don't accidentally
| abuse them again."
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Sounds like a Federal civil rights violation. Someone should
| sue.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > In 2020 Kiory Baugh, then an ace 2nd grader in Grenada,
| Mississippi, was paddled by her principal even though she was
| on the no-paddle list. When Kiory came home from school she was
| in so much pain she could not sit down. The school told Julia,
| her mother, there was no need to take her to the hospital.
| Julia took her to the emergency room anyway, where the doctor
| told her he would have called the police if she had been hit
| outside of school. She missed seven days of classes to recover.
| After Julia complained to the district, Kiory's teacher failed
| her. That summer Julia moved the family to Arkansas, where
| corporal punishment is less common.
|
| Alternately, even if you are on a 'no-paddle' (wtf) list, your
| kid can still be badly abused by the school district with no
| recourse.
| patrickmay wrote:
| Speaking as a father, there would be recourse.
| braingravy wrote:
| True, you could move away. That would be after a stranger
| inflicts physical trauma upon your child, however. Might be
| best to avoid that altogether?
| kurthr wrote:
| I'm not sure you (or perhaps even the parent comment?)
| quite realize what "recourse" by a father would mean in
| Mississippi. I read that as, shooting the principal dead
| and possibly turning yourself in to the police. If you're
| white, you'll probably get off with jail time. If you're
| dark skinned or non-christian probably suicide by cop to
| avoid the unpleasant (in)justice. It's about protecting
| other children and making future principals think twice.
|
| The US is a large country with highly variable laws and
| customs. Just as parts of Europe refer to other parts of
| Europe as 'North Africa'... when you say Florida or
| Missippi in the US it has a similar twang.
| braingravy wrote:
| I think you're right, that's what the parent comment was
| referring to. That seemed patiently ridiculous, so I made
| a joke about how the recourse would be moving away.
|
| Might be better to just make it illegal to hit children?
| kube-system wrote:
| I've always wondered why assault statutes don't apply in these
| scenarios. I presume in loco parentis is a defense? Is this
| something that is well tested by the courts in the places where
| this still takes place?
| tptacek wrote:
| My understanding is that it's explicitly drawn from English
| common law; it's not derived from "in loco parentis", but
| rather a specific exception to the rule about assault.
|
| In the states that ban it (and the major cities in most of the
| states that don't), it's assault, of course.
| tptacek wrote:
| The map on this school colors Illinois as on the lower, but
| nonzero, end of the corporal punishment spectrum. But corporal
| punishment is illegal in Illinois, by statute (105 ILCS 5/24-24).
| The Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education, where
| the Economist sourced the data for this map, lists Illinois as
| one of the dark-blue states that bans corporal punishment
| outright.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| There is nothing in the law of some states that explicitly
| prevents schools from beating children. The protection that may
| be granted by the constitution doesn't apply to children for some
| reason. Did I understand this correctly?
| tptacek wrote:
| Most states outlaw corporal punishment in schools, but some do
| not, because there is a tradition going all the way back to
| English common law (like, it's in Blackstone's explicitly) that
| moderate physical correction by schoolmasters is an exception
| to the general rule that people must be free from physical
| assault.
|
| In the states that don't currently ban corporal punishments in
| schools, it's likely that the municipal centers of those states
| do. By way of example: this article had to focus on Union
| County MS, which is in the middle of nowhere even for
| Mississippi. Jackson is the municipal center of Mississippi,
| and it bans corporal punishment.
| rayiner wrote:
| In Bangladeshi schools they punish misbehaving kids by putting
| pencils between their fingers and squeezing. I'm conflicted on
| the subject. On one hand my default assumption is that Americans
| know better and physical discipline is barbaric and backwards. On
| the other hand the empirical evidence of how poorly American kids
| are behaved seems to undermine the idea that they know what
| they're doing when it comes to child rearing.
| [deleted]
| robocat wrote:
| https://archive.vn/1eCAY (if the .today link doesn't work for
| you. Edit: archive.today still gives me a 502 and .vn works)
| jart wrote:
| Why would a .today link not work for someone? Speaking of
| which, there's also https://archive.is/1eCAY
| jimbo99912 wrote:
| There's some law on the books (Texas maybe?) about it being a
| hanging offense to engage in cattle wrustling. Perhaps I'm
| remembering it incorrectly.
|
| This is likely to be a similar sort of law (or lack of a law
| saying it isn't allowed), where it may technically be true that
| this is allowed but realistically you would end up in all sorts
| of legal trouble for hitting students.
| MoSattler wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > In 2018, the year for which the latest numbers are available,
| 69,000 American children were hit by public-school staff
| jimbo9991 wrote:
| I stand corrected, that's wild.
| RajT88 wrote:
| From my generation at least (teenagers from the 90's), I
| heard stories not of beatings, but getting whacked on the
| knuckles by nuns in private catholic schools.
|
| The private catholic schools in my town being a mix of kids
| with religious parents, bad kids who got kicked out of
| public high schools and parents who didn't want a co-ed
| education for their kids.
| bsder wrote:
| > There's some law on the books (Texas maybe?) about it being a
| hanging offense to engage in cattle wrustling. Perhaps I'm
| remembering it incorrectly.
|
| You are not wrong: "cattle rustling" is indeed still a hanging
| offense in Texas.
|
| What makes this a bit interesting is that, technically, if you
| eat a steak and then don't pay for it, you have engaged in
| "cattle rustling".
|
| So, dine and dash at a steakhouse could legally be punished by
| a hanging.
| roamerz wrote:
| From the comments my views will definitely be in the minority
| here.
|
| Personal experience: Every school I attended through 12th grade
| had corporal punishment in place. In 5th grade I was punished by
| a Catholic Nun who broke a ruler over my hands as they were
| laying flat on the desk. It was deserved and fixed the problem at
| hand and by example to the other students. (haha no pun
| intended). I actually have a fond memory of it now as they made
| my parents pay for the broken ruler. We laugh about it now and
| then. It happened again in HS and remember being scared shitless
| because it was being administered by a teacher with a good rep
| for painful swats. It solved the issues that time as well.
| Neither instance caused any psychological damage to me(that i'm
| aware of) and helped keep our learning environment a place where
| people can actually go to learn.
|
| Corporal punishment is no longer practiced in my state. I would
| support it if it came back. It's an effective tool.
| eh9 wrote:
| I don't want to speak to your personal trauma, but child abuse
| is never an effective tool.
| slibhb wrote:
| Defining corporeal punishment as "child abuse" is incorrect.
| drsnow wrote:
| If a teacher broke a damn ruler over my hands, let alone making
| my family pay for it when we grew up broke, I have to say, I
| would swing on her.
| isthisthingon99 wrote:
| Same. We've been smacking kids for tens of thousands of years
| to protect them and society. There is a difference between
| smacking kids and abusing them.
|
| I got smacked, but in a way that was traumatizing(?) as I
| remember every second of it decades later. Still, it did
| actually encourage me to improve the thing I got smacked about
| and probably led to me being as successful as I am (such as it
| were.)
| diego_moita wrote:
| From this comment I assume that you are from the country that
| gave us the "enforced questioning" loved by Dick Cheney and Fox
| News and practiced in Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo.
|
| What can I say? It is America, give them mass shootings, death
| penalty and spanking. For each it's own.
| vidarh wrote:
| It is fairly normal for victims of violence to seek to explain
| away the abuse they were subjected to as deserved or necessary
| when carried out by someone in authority over them.
|
| It doesn't change that it is harmful abuse. I'm sorry you were
| subjected to that kind of abuse, even though you believe it was
| justified.
|
| There's nothing to suggest it serves a legitimate purpose.
| schemescape wrote:
| > It's an effective tool.
|
| Citation needed.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| It's their personal anecdote.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It _can_ be an effective tool. Or it _can_ be abused (and, in
| fact, be abuse).
|
| My own memory is of the time I _wasn 't_ hit. I was in
| elementary school. The principal was out shoveling snow off of
| the sidewalk where it crossed a driveway. I was out on recess,
| and I hit her with a snowball. She didn't hit me, though school
| policy allowed it at the time. Instead, she just had _me_
| shovel the snow. (Duh... what did I think was going to happen?)
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I can say that for me being told by someone I respected that I
| was doing something wrong was always enough to stop poor
| behavior.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| * * *
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Never thought about this, but for teachers outside Mississippi, a
| job-gating question should be "have you ever hit a child".
| [deleted]
| rom-antics wrote:
| Can the children defend themselves, or are they legally required
| to passively accept the beatings? If you're going to beat
| people's kids, at least level the playing field.
| curiousllama wrote:
| There's actually formal combat rules, similar to dueling. It's
| fairly progressive for that part of the world
| paulcole wrote:
| I don't get why you're downvoted but the guy who asked if the
| kids can defend themselves gets upvoted lmao.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| How is a child supposed to defend themselves from an adult?
| sam36 wrote:
| [flagged]
| WithinReason wrote:
| Fair enough
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I'd be curious if assault charges have been levied against a
| child who fought back a violent teacher.
| [deleted]
| spankalee wrote:
| I punched a teacher once in high school after he violently
| grabbed and yanked me. We just stared at each other, and then
| I walked away. I would have absolutely pressed charges
| otherwise.
|
| As a parent now, god help any teacher that would dare lay
| hands on my kid.
| grecy wrote:
| I always thought the same should apply to bear, elephant, lion,
| etc. hunting.
|
| Absolutely a person should be able to prove how tough they are.
|
| Bare handed.
| eh9 wrote:
| A child in a similar situation could be removed from their home.
| Shouldn't protection agencies be involved?
|
| This feels like state sponsored child abuse. When does the
| federal government intervine?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Opt out child beating is not something I ever would have dreamed
| was still going on in America. At the bare minimum make it opt
| in.
| vitaflo wrote:
| I do remember my 5th grade teacher had a cracked paddle sitting
| on the chalkboard at all times. He pointed it out when we started
| the class and it was there as a daily reminder. This was a US
| public school in the mid-80s. Nobody back then had a problem with
| it. Certainly a different time.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| Corporal punishment by parents is allowed in even more states. I
| see that as much graver.
| belfalas wrote:
| I was friends with someone who did Teach for America in
| Mississippi. They paddled the kids in the school which my friend
| at first found shocking, she refused to participate.
|
| The explanation that made the most "sense" was that, at home,
| corporal punishment was how the parents disciplined the kids. So
| if at school all you got was a verbal warning the kids wouldn't
| take it seriously.
|
| IMHO by the time corporal punishment becomes 'the answer' there
| are way bigger structural issues to examine.
| grecy wrote:
| My Dad was a teacher in Australia when that kind of thing was
| still legal.
|
| It was his first year of teaching (so he was about 22) and he
| only ever did it to one kid who was a notorious trouble making.
|
| He was telling me just before Christmas that he still remembers
| that kid's name, and still regrets doing it and wishes he
| didn't.
|
| My Dad is now 71 years old.
| kube-system wrote:
| > IMHO by the time corporal punishment becomes 'the answer'
| there are way bigger structural issues to examine.
|
| If this is what's notable about education there, you're
| probably right:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenada,_Mississippi#Education
| roughly wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_God_for_Mississippi
| jlkweaegr wrote:
| [dead]
| rayiner wrote:
| * * *
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| One thing I love about reading the Economist is the non-American
| perspective it gives me on American news. In the US we call this
| "corporeal punishment" or "spanking" and pretend like it's rare,
| no big deal, and maybe necessary. The Economist doesn't mince
| words referring to it as "hit", "beat", "strike", "hurt", and
| finally "criminal assault".
| saghm wrote:
| > In the US we call this "corporeal punishment" or "spanking"
| and pretend like it's rare, no big deal, and maybe necessary.
|
| To be clear, not everyone in the US feels this way. I'm shocked
| and saddened that it's legal in 19 states, and I would
| categorically not vote for anyone who I knew would support
| legalizing it in the others. The sad reality is that the
| political system in the US can sometimes make it extremely
| difficult to enact and enforce popular measures.
| MoSattler wrote:
| I guess it's the European perspective, where most countries
| have outlawed any corporeal punishment.
| afandian wrote:
| Asking out of pure curiosity, as you repeated that spelling.
| In the UK we say "corporal" not "corporeal". Is the latter
| standard in US English?
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Corporal is standard in the US as well, may be confusing
| the terms because "corporeal" does (loosely) mean "of the
| flesh" as well.
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| It's not. "Corporal punishment" is the correct spelling in
| the US, too.
| rayiner wrote:
| Its corporal punishment in the US too. Corporeal means
| having a physical body.
| enkid wrote:
| Edit: Language is a construct set by society. Merriam
| Webster states corporal punishment is the correct term, but
| corporeal is the word that means "of the body." Corporal
| used to mean of the body but is not used that way outside
| the specific term corporal punishment. Ignore the below.
|
| Corporal is a rank in the military. Corporeal (pronounced
| something like core pore ree al) is having to do with a
| person's body, but isn't used in often outside of the
| phrase "corporeal punishment."
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| "Corporeal punishment" is not a phrase. It's "corporal
| punishment".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment
| afandian wrote:
| Corporal means "of the body" too. Though, as siblings
| comments have noted, in a less theological framing.
| pcdevils wrote:
| US news and dictionaries say corporal like the UK.
| Corporeal makes it sound like beating the physical being of
| the spirit. Which, depending on your views may seem right,
| whilst being grammatically incorrect.
| gpm wrote:
| Corporeal is an entirely different word, roughly meaning
| "with some form of body that can be physically touched". A
| ghost isn't corporeal, a human is. An ebook isn't
| corporeal, an ebook-reader is.
|
| With auto-complete/spellcheck and neither word being used
| often, it's not surprising that someone would mix the two
| up.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| They have, although the article gets it wrong - the U.K. did
| _not_ ban it in 1986, as my school experience attests - I was
| caned frequently, and a caning was, honestly, preferable to
| the alternatives which usually involved gravel.
|
| It was banned in _state funded_ schools in 1986. Public (i.e.
| private) schools, 1999. I suppose at least it gave parents
| the choice as to whether or not they'd like their kids to be
| beaten, and at least at school they didn't use the buckle end
| of a belt, just a meter rule.
| devwastaken wrote:
| I don't believe this is true. 42 USC 1983 allows government
| actors to be sued for civil rights violations. Much of the
| precedence for capital punishment is before this, and is unlikely
| to be upheld.
|
| While on the books it may look legal, if parents were to bring a
| lawsuit they would likely win.
| nimbius wrote:
| Unsurprising from a country who's prison population makes the
| height of the soviet gulag look like a summer camp. The US also
| routinely resists reforms to its juvenile incarceration system,
| separates migrant children incarcerated at the border from their
| families, and removes children from families who cannot afford
| foster care services. The US also still refuses to adopt the UN
| rights of the child.
| jey wrote:
| > The US also still refuses to adopt the UN rights of the
| child.
|
| Interesting:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._ratification_of_the_Conve...
| MoSattler wrote:
| http://archive.today/1eCAY
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(page generated 2023-01-21 23:00 UTC)