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The great think about breaking out the figures (and one of the primary reasons I always thought that records were kept) was to show if there was any systemic abuse, or abuse by any paticular educator. The computer age has made this job much easier than it was in days gone by.
I can think of exactly three ways in which, if SCP was meted for some unwholesome reason or self-gratification, that this should raise flags when disecting the data.
First, if you look at Table 3, the Catford punishment distribution chart, this shows the very typical profile of number of pupils punished once being highest, and twice lower, and decelerating down to nil at teh one-off high-frequency punished pupils to the right. if abuse was systemic, one might see an odd shape to this curve. For example, if many educators seemed to pick on several boys of their “liking”, then one might see higher numbers bunching at a higher frequency of punishmet, and the curve would not have the smoothed incident decay as this one exhibits. Therefore, from all appearances, if there was abuse, then it did not appear to be systemic.
Next two points are: if certain boys were singled out for abuse by a particular educator, it follows that they might be at the high end of SCP incidents. Further, one would expect to see either of these two: 1) the SCP applied to that boy was unusually concentrated in being meted by the same educator. 2) the severity of punishment was an outlier to the norm. So let’s explore this.
The most-caned boys were as follows:
Boy1 had 24 incidents, 57 strokes applied, or 2.4 average strokes per incident. By checking the records, this boy was punishmed by 10 different people. The breakdown of each meting how many was 5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 respectively. The 2.4 aerage strokes is rasoanbly in line with the 2.0 meted over all data, so not significantly outluing.
Boy2 also had 24 incidents, 72 strokes applied, or 3.0 average strokes per incident. This boy was punished by 8 different people. The breakdown of each meting how many was 7, 5, 4, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1. Even the one caning 7 times does not appear to be noticeably outsized to the 24 canings. He did receive 3.0 strokes on average, this is soemwhat out of raneg to the 2.0 median. However, three of these were for truancy and as I stated above, that usually drew 6, so this skews the data and the rest of teh inccidents seemed quite in line with others punished for similar offences.
Boy3 had 23 incidents, 41 strokes applied, or 1.8 average strokes per incident. This boy was punished by 14 different people. The breakdown of each educatyor meting how many canings was 7, 4, and 12 each at 1. Notice that this stroke average is <em>under </em>the school average so this raises no flags either.
Then, I also looked at the 11 year-old who was being punished frequently. Here we have 7 educators in 13 indicents, caning rates were 6, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 respectively. Again this does not seem to show targetting by one educator.
In short, despite the appearance of high overall caning rates, there is nothing that specifically sends up a flag that any boy was being unduly targetted as an SCP recipient. They were simply breaking rules that naturally drew this type of response. It would be excellent to analyse the Bacons logs for the time frames in question to see if any of the aboe indications of abuse were present.
I should add that these exercises are profoundly beneficial to me, I hope they are to you as well. Taking it in with the sum total of everything on the CP subject, it impels me to continuously re-examine what I believe, and why I believe it.
I think CP is a profoundly useful and effective technique, under certain conditions and in certain circumstances. It is patently not a first line and cover-all appraoch. Further, it can only have the possibility of being beneficial when used sparingly, in a tempered and judicious manner, and balancing firmness with mercy, understanding and opportunity for a repreive. Also, it must not only be fair, but be <em>seen as fair </em>by all the stakeholders. It is not formulaic – as appears to be the case at Catford.
There are children on either end of the scale: those who would equally and likely better respond to milder methods, a simple conversation about their behaviour, and there are those who, no matter how many canings, simply do not care, and will not respond to this method. In either case, the method is likely to cause more unintended harm than good. It appears it works best for those in the middle, who while not responding adequately to milder measures, may respond well to this (the one or two time offenders who were deterred from becoming serial). But, if it’s been tried and failed on a few occassions, it seriously should be dropped in favour of other techniques. Yes, I know the records were from the 50’s – another time, another planet, as “Wayne” pointed out, but the thinking still applies today vis-a-vis other methods that are currently employed.
Sorry if that’s a ramble. I neither have the intention to preach nor try to convince anyone of anything, but I do like to get these thoughts out when, on rare occassion, they seem to gel with some lucidity in my mind! 
I suspect my worldview is rather different from most on this forum. CP in the 1960s fitted within the context of what was a very different and much more structured world. It was an integral and unquestioned part of school for virtually all boys. As far as I am concerned the jury is out on the questions of recidivism, effectiveness and efficiency.
I attended what would be classed a comprehensive in England. I and my friends were in the more academic classes, and would be classed as being in the boring/well behaved category. The cane was used quite frequently and many received it once or twice for minor offences. We very much saw it as bad luck and I don’t think it changed behaviour in any significant way.
On the other hand there were a small number who repeatedly offended and were repeatedly caned. I did not really understand them but the way they thumbed their nose at authority gave them a certain status. My interpretation was that eventually they grew out of their behaviour or sensibly decided school was not for them and left at 15. I have recently become aware of two bright boys who left school at 15, partly in resentment at the constraints and the caning. One was in Australia and one in England – both did well in life and coincidentally each became a successful author after retirement.
One area where the threat of the cane did have an effect was the mandatory 6 for fighting. IMHO it didn’t really achieve its aim of reducing fighting, though I suppose there could have been even more fights than there were. However if one of the rougher types shoved me around in the playground I tended to try and walk away as I did not fancy both being beaten up and getting the cane. Retaliation to bullying would have been extremely unwise. I suspect that in an event similar to the one related in JD19s superb post here , the results would have been similar.
The environment you describe seems to have been a common approach in many locales of that era. “<em>The cane was used quite frequently and many received it once or twice for minor offences</em>.” I have to agree with you that being so commonly deployed, “… <em>I don’t think it changed behaviour in any significant way</em>.” That mirrors the point <strong>prof.n</strong> also made “<em>how grossly inefficient caning is when used as what appears to be a <strong>first line punishment</strong></em>” (aka common , frequent and overused) and where he also cites for example the sheer overuse of the strap in Scottish classrooms.
My schooling experience was quite the opposite, so SCP was something to be dreaded and avoided at all costs. IMHO, the rarer it is, the more apprehensive one is to cause it to be envoked, and likely the higher deterrent value <em>on the rest of the pupils </em>(but we have no empirical way to measure this).
As an anecdote: I remember in my grade 4 class, (we’re 9 year olds), the teacher asked a boy what’s wrong, why he was crying? The boy replied that the one next to him (a freind i playe with in the village) punched him in the face. Well! The teacher thrust her wooden chair out from behind the desk to place it in full view, and ripped open her top drawer to extract a thick wooden ruler… called the offender up to the front and horsed him over the chair. There must have been 10 well timed whacks on the bottom with as much swing as she could muster. The boy didn’t cry (If it was me, I would have been wailing). When it was over, he just got up with a very red face and went back to his desk. Silece filled the room until the furnitire and ruler were back in place, and the lessons resumed.
Do I think this was a deterrent for that boy? I haven’t a clue. But he did not do anything else to draw that kind of response in class again. Then who was it a deterrent for? the aswer is me. When I saw that, I can tell you that I was not consciously going to do anything remotely close to being a recipient of that response! But if the same thing happened to be a daily occurrence, then I think I would have viewed it differently, as you have very aptly described above.
In my senior school the cane was the ultimate deterrent, and they did everything they could to avoid ever using it with the ‘A’ stream. Therefore of all the school groups we feared it most. My experience of school cp had been a pretty merciless thrashing with a heavy tawse on my poor hands by a very irate primary headmistress, so I was doubly deterred.
Eventually , as those of you who know my story will recall i did ‘get’ caned , by the acting deputy head ,a lady who I knew well as my girlfriends mother. She went out of her way not to make the build up etc frightening. Actually she believed in line with public school thinking it would get me accepted by the sort of ‘leading clique’ in the school – and she was right. She put it to another master afterwards ‘I decided to let the cat cut his claws and take his rightful place in the pride’
BUT it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the nuclear deterrent I thought it would be. Ergo it held no dread for me. Indeed in a further 12 months I had deliberately taken six of the best off the Head – the ultimate punishment – quite stoically, rather than compromise my ‘principles’- which, in the public school ethos impressed him enough to offer me a full boarding scholarship. That , of course, is how the notion of ‘school right or wrong but always’ became so popular in the mythology of British private education. Caning is another examination to ‘pass’ or ‘flunk’ with the prize being the ability to stand tall against the backcloth of the many who remain transfixed by their fear. The flashman arrogance which unites the products of the British public school the world over, and were stupid or fearless enough ( depending on your viewpoint) to lead the donkeys over the top of the trenches
You know, the spectrum of opinion in the matter goes from the one extreme who belive SCP is the first, best and only answer to any situation and for anyone. Of coures on the extreme opposite are those who believe it is never under any circumstance of benefit to anyone and should patently never be used. I think the most of us slide along the line that connects those two, and I presume you are closer to the latter end point. As you say this is complex. Because it is, I can never find myself on either extreme of the issue because for all the claims made on either side, there is always something that contradicts it.That’s why I like looking at empirical data. Doing this also has many faults, but from limited options avaialble, it’s unfortunately the best we have to work with. Verbal testimonials do contribute, and I find them actually more useful to disprove a claim than to support one… Let me show you what I mean using my example given.
In my recount. The boy who was punched was a rather meek, docile and smaller boy – just like me at the time. So it is extremely unlikely he did anything (like bully) the one who punched him. The boy who punched (who was also a friend I played with sometimes in teh village) was a rambunctious type, so although he never did anything to me (we were freinds) that act frankly didn’t surprie me in hindsight, as it was within his demeanor to do so.
I don’t recall the teacher asking why he punched the boy. I was too engrossed in the desk drawer flying open part of this, and from that point on until it was over, the entire experience is still crystal clear in my head, like a DVD playing!
Here is where my experience does not gel with what is sometimes claimed. I once had a heated debate with an obvious anti-CP’r, and his summation of my school experience was that I lived in a “miasma of fear” due to the fact that SCP was used there. IMHO, it showed an utter lack of understanding of how I was affected by this (but I think he chose not to nderstand). It was actually the opposite: being a smaller child in the class and therefore an easier target, the fact that this could be resorted to and everyone knew it actually made me feel safer, because I knew (or “believed”) that the school would protect me if I was beat on. That’s not fear, that’s assurance, and while i was in elementary, i lover school and felt very comfortable there. However Ill admit, what I felt does not equal what someone else felt under the same conditions.
If there was any fear … and I am being totally honest with you! … was a report of gross misbehaviour at school (whether spanked or not there) being reported to home. My parents were truly loving and caring people, but that kind of thing was just way off side, and the bare-bottom hiding I could anticipate at home would surely be of greater intensity than anything the school might have done!
One comment of yours that I strongly support is re the ‘miasma of fear’. The CP regime was not a source of fear for me, with the possible exception of the first few weeks of high school. That was because I was the smallest of 1100+ boys, I was bullied and the cane was used on a seemingly random basis. To give an analogy, the risk of getting the cane was a little akin to having an accident when driving in the city. It could have happened any time, but you only thought about it when an incident occurred. I remember very little of my schooling, but several CP incidents are indelibly fixed.
You say to Prof.N that two tier systems cannot work. As in Puberty Blues, most NSW state high schools were co-ed, with all boys subject to CP and all girls exempt. Others would have to comment whether they ‘worked’.