Judicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment is the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishments include caning, bastinado, birching, whipping, or strapping. The practice was once commonplace in many countries, but over time it has been abolished in most countries, although still remaining a form of legal punishment in some countries including a number of former British colonies and Muslim-majority states.
Countries where JCP is used
The Singaporean official punishment of caning became much discussed around the world in 1994 when an American teenager, Michael Fay, was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for vandalism. Like Singapore, Malaysia also has corporal punishment.Other former British colonies with judicial caning currently on their statute books include Barbados, Botswana, Brunei, Swaziland, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, and Zimbabwe.
Many Muslim-majority countries use judicial corporal punishment, such as United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, northern Nigeria, Sudan and Yemen, employ judicial whipping or caning for a range of offences. In Indonesia it has recently been introduced for the first time. In April 2020, the Saudi Supreme Court abolished the flogging punishment from its court system.
Full list of countries
A list of 29 countries that use lawful, official JCP today is as follows:- . See Judicial corporal punishment in Afghanistan
- See Caning in Brunei.
- , Aceh Special Region only
- In Iran, they also follow eye for an eye punishment.
- . See Caning in Malaysia. *
- . See Caning in Singapore.
- . No longer applied to non-Muslims.
History by country
Egypt
ians practiced rhinectomy, punishing some offenses by cutting off the criminal's nose. Such criminals were often exiled to locations in Sinai, such as Tjaru and Rhinocorura, whose own name was Greek for "denosed".Jersey
The last birching sentence in Jersey was carried out in 1966. Birching was abandoned as a policy in 1969 but lingered on the statute books. Obsolete references to corporal punishment were removed from remaining statutes by the Criminal Justice Law 2007Guernsey
The last birching sentence was carried out in 1968. The Corporal Punishment Law, 1957 was finally repealed by the Criminal Justice Law, 2006Isle of Man
Judicial birching was abolished in the Isle of Man in 2000 following the judgment in Tyrer v. UK by the European Court of Human Rights. The last birching took place in January 1976; the last caning, of a 13-year-old boy convicted of robbing another child of 10p, was the last recorded juvenile case in May 1971.Netherlands
In 1854 judicial corporal punishment was abolished in the Netherlands with the exception of whipping. Whipping itself was abolished in 1870.In the Wetboek van Strafrecht, article 9, this kind of punishment is not listed as primary or secondary punishment. Mainly because of human rights and/or human dignity, corporal punishment has been abolished and does not exist at this time.
South Africa
The Constitutional Court decided in 1995 in the case of S v Williams and Others that caning of juveniles was unconstitutional. Although the ruling in S v Williams was limited to the corporal punishment of males under the age of 21, Justice Langa mentioned in dicta that there was a consensus that corporal punishment of adults was also unconstitutional.The Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act, 1997 abolished judicial corporal punishment.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, JCP generally was abolished in 1948; however, it persisted in prisons as a punishment for prisoners committing serious assaults on prison staff until it was abolished by s 65 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967.United States
American colonies judicially punished in a variety of forms, including whipping, stocks, the pillory and the ducking stool. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whipping posts were considered indispensable in American and English towns. Starting in 1776, Gen. George Washington strongly advocated and utilized JCP in the Continental Army, with due process protection, obtaining in 1776 authority from the Continental Congress to impose 100 lashes, more than the previous limit of 39. In his 1778 Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments, Thomas Jefferson provided up to 15 lashes for individuals pretending to witchcraft or prophecy, at the jury's discretion; castration for men guilty of rape, polygamy or sodomy, and a minimum half-inch hole bored in the nose cartilage of women convicted of those sex crimes. In 1781, Washington requested legal authority from the Continental Congress to impose up to 500 lashes, as there was still a punishment gap between 100 lashes and the death penalty. The Founders believed whipping and other forms of corporal punishment effectively promoted pro-social and discouraged anti-social behavior. Two later presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, advocated judicial corporal punishment as punishment for wife-beating.In the United States judicial flogging was last used in 1952 in Delaware when a wife beater got 20 lashes. In Delaware, the criminal code permitted floggings to occur until 1972. One of the major objections to judicial corporal punishment in the United States was that it was unpleasant to administer.
Judicial corporal punishment has never been held unconstitutional in the United States. In fact, the Fifth Amendment specifically mentions amputation of limbs as a possible sentence for offenders, perhaps referencing Thomas Jefferson's proposed legislation punishing rapists.
Other countries
JCP was removed from the statute book in Canada in 1972, in India in the 1950s, in New Zealand in 1941, and in Australia at various times in the 20th century according to State.It has been abolished in recent decades in Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Zambia.
Other countries that were neither former British territories nor Islamic states that have used JCP in the more distant past include China, Germany, South Korea, Sweden and Vietnam.