Corporal punishment survey 73

Another_Lurker wrote:

As an adult a couple of doctors have told me that I have a high pain threshold and there seems no reason to suppose that this wasn’t the case when I was younger.  The probability is that if I’d been caned at school it wouldn’t have been as painful for me as for most recipients, although I wasn’t aware of that at the time.

I doubt you would have found the cane less painful than other people.  Its unique quality is that, correctly applied, it exceeds everyone’s pain threshold.  It can be said that because it hurts everyone and hurts them equally it is a fair punishment.  As I have written in the past, there is also the issue of pain tolerance.  One or two strokes are bearable, but repeated applications, increasing the duration of maximum pain to a minute or more, are difficult to cope with.  Pain tolerance can be tested by putting your hand in ice cold water.  At first it isn’t too bad, but after two minutes most people want to end the experiment.

I am glad i never got the cane in school !   Pain threshold or not i think it would have been unbearable.

Very strange indeed!  I’ve just had the start of a post disappear into the digital void for no good reason at all that I can see.  One second it was there, the next it was gone, as though some invisible hand had wiped the posting box clean!  And Ctrl z didn’t bring it back.  Ah well, press on ……………….

Hello hcj,

I shall of course bow to your superior knowledge of the practicalities of being caned as regards the likely effect on me.  As you know I have no personal  experience of this whatsoever.

There is of course another factor to be taken into account.  One of the occasions when a doctor remarked on my pain threshold was in casualty early one winter  Sunday morning in Belford hospital Fort William where friends had deposited me.  I’d been blown off a mountain and got bashed about a bit.

The lady doctor initially refused to accept my explanation of what had happened because she said I couldn’t possibly have walked down from there in my condition and she knew that the mountain rescue team hadn’t been called out. It seemed sensible not to tell her that I’d had to assist someone else down the tricky bits and then help push the car out of some soft ground so I didn’t.

But of course I’d been on the mountain entirely through choice.  I knew what to expect and what could happen.  Dealing with the conditions was all part of the fun.  When  something went wrong I knew what to do and I did it.  However none of those factors would have applied if I’d been apprehensively standing outside the door of the prefects’ room waiting to be called in to be caned for the first time.

Even once familiar with the process any subsequent visits would have been non-voluntary and much resented.  And I certainly wouldn’t have had the incentive of avoiding the near inevitability of  spending a very unpleasant and potentially life threatening night in deep snow and ferocious  wind high on a Scottish mountain ridge to get me through the pain of the caning!

You observed of the cane that:

Its unique quality is that, correctly applied, it exceeds everyone’s pain threshold.  It can be said that because it hurts everyone and hurts them equally it is a fair punishment.

It is I think possible to measure perceived pain scientifically rather than by estimate.  I seem to remember something here and can predict the very well informed participants in the discussion.  Sadly though I can’t find anything.  I wonder if such a comparative accurate measurement has been done for caning.  One would need a skilled caner delivering a consistent very severe caning and a group of volunteer recipients of different physical types and ages.  Perhaps, in this age of equality, of both sexes.  Hmm, sounds just my sort of thing!

But would such a test really indicate that all the recipients suffered equal pain?  Or are we saying that for a period the pain would for whatever reason be unmeasurable, off the top end of the measurement system’s capability, and hence could be assumed to have exceeded the brain’s ability to rank it for all participants.  I’m not convinced that the latter would mean that everyone had suffered an equal degree of pain though.

You also wrote:

As I have written in the past, there is also the issue of pain tolerance.  One or two strokes are bearable, but repeated applications, increasing the duration of maximum pain to a minute or more, are difficult to cope with.

A former contributor who had I believe done some caning of schoolboys, though not necessarily in the capacity he claimed here, once wrote that he’d asked for estimates of how much each successive well spaced hard cane stroke increased the pain of the experience.  The estimates went as high as a doubling with each successive stroke.  On that basis six of the best would indeed be a formidable experience, 32 times the pain level of the initial stroke by the time it’s all over.

The same contributor also said that six of the best should be beyond any doubt by far the most painful thing a boy had ever  experienced in his life.

I’m with kevinont above:  I am very glad that I was never caned at school!

Sooks and wimps

A common but by no means a universal pattern back in the good old days was as follows.

Boys are repeatedly warned by well meaning relatives and teachers about how dreadful the cane is. These warnings are augmented by warnings from others who take delight in terrifying boys with exaggerated tales of agony and how much braver and tougher they (the story teller) is than their naïve listener.

Then the inevitable happens. It is not a laughing matter but nor is it the end of the world. Irrational fear is replaced by rational respect. Literally millions of boys were caned at school in the first century of compulsory education. Most boys suffered no lasting harm and many benefitted.

i am heavily tattooed, i found that my tolerance for being inked varied greatly depending on my mood and general state of mind… and of course the area being tattooed, i would assume someones tolerance for caning might well vary a great deal the same way.

Another_Lurker wrote:  It is I think possible to measure perceived pain scientifically rather than by estimate.

If that is the case, I am not aware of it.  When undergoing hospital treatment I have often been asked to describe my pain on a numerical scale, which is often difficult.  As dane observes, the level of pain often depends on location and mood.  I have only been tattooed in three places, as part of a medical procedure, and one was distinctly more painful than the others.  So yes, there are differences in perceived pain, but if the circumstances are not voluntary or necessary for survival, I contend that it is more likely to be found unpleasant.  I have never heard anyone claim “That wasn’t a bad wasp sting!”

You say: I’m not convinced that the latter would mean that everyone had suffered an equal degree of pain though.  Graeme Newman, in his book “Just and Painful”, explains it far better than me.

I think the former contributor who suggested:  “six of the best should be beyond any doubt by far the most painful thing a boy had ever experienced in his life”, was not as much of an authority as he would have had us believe.  From personal experience, I know it isn’t true, but that doesn’t mean “six of the best” is anything to be underestimated.

Hello hcj,

If you are not aware of it then clearly I was mistaken in thinking that I had seen a reference to a scientific measurement of pain in this Forum, my apologies.

The contributor I referenced on the progressive pain of a caning and the effects of six of the best was, as became evident, not what he claimed and almost certainly hadn’t wielded the cane over such a long period and with the frequency and underlying detailed procedures he recounted.

However even his most vociferous  persecutor doubter here, who conducted an extensive investigation into his bona fides, and with whom I had some  off-Forum communication on the subject, seemed to believe that he had held a post in which caning schoolboys was part of the job description.  Not in the type of school documented here though.

With regard to the equality of perception of extreme pain you say:

Graeme Newman, in his book “Just and Painful”, explains it far better than me.

I regret that I have not read the book.  An extensive summary on the site of a prominent US university seems to indicate that Graeme Newman was suggesting electric shocks rather than cane strokes.  Possibly the two are comparable in effect.  Having been careful to avoid either I am unable to comment.

Good afternoon A_L.  You are quite correct that Graeme Newman’s proposal related to electric shocks for JCP, but it included a good description of the human responses to painful stimuli.

another lurker I am not being clever  here I suppose the whole idea of a caning / spanking whatever is to inflict maximum pain too the derriere or hand otherwise it is a futile exercise I guess been caned on the hand could be quiet painful and effective as it is in contact with skin mind you the damage this may cause to the hand  / fingers if not administered correctly where on the derriere [ as you see I like that description for the bum ] have protective layers which may give minimal protection too the derriere

Just and Painful. A Case for the Corporal Punishment of Criminals
Graeme Newman

ISBN:911577335
Harrow and Heston, Albany N.Y. 1995

Back cover:

Not everyone will agree with this book. Some will say it is a case for torture. It is not. But everyone who reads it, especially those concerned that today’s longer, tougher sentences are turning the U.S. into an “inmate nation” will be forced to rethink exactly what we mean by punishment. And justice.

Why, Graeme Newman asks, has reform after reform failed to halt the spread of crime? How can we demand long, mandatory sentences when voters refuse to spend the money to build more and bigger prisons? Does anyone know what to do with those who break the law?

Graeme Newman has a plan. In a book of compelling power and vision, the distinguished criminologist brings the heated debate over the control of crime back to where it belongs: the nature of punishment. And he shows that the crucial question we must ask is what kind of punishment, rather than how much of it, fits the crime.

Although talking of corporal punishment without conjuring visions of torture is not easy, Newman makes his case persuasively. In the form of carefully controlled electric shocks, such a punishment does not mutilate. It is measurable. And once punished, the offender is released. There is also strong evidence for its potential as a deterrent.

“We do not seek to ‘cure’ the criminal,” Newman writes, ‘but rather to have him atone for his crime.” Punishment, not rehabilitation, is the only logical goal of the criminal justice system. And for punishment to work, it must teach a clear, painful lesson about the literal evil of crime. Without pain, he shows, there is no punishment. Without punishment, there can never be justice.

This is not a call for cruelty or barbarism. Some will disagree with Newman, others will applaud his courage. This is a book of proposals, a manifesto urging us to radically rethink the meaning of law, order, and justice, and the role of punishment in the protection of society. Few will be unmoved by the force of its argument.

_______________________________________________

Chapter 5. Electric Shock: The fairest Punishment of all.

Subheadings

• Measuring differences in response to pain
• Making pain the same for everyone
• Does pain differ according to social and ethnic background
• Difference in response to chronic pain
• The fairness of acute pain
• Would minorities suffer more than they do now?
• What about women and children?
• In sum ….