Canes too rigid and don’t inflict enough pain, Govt. report reveals
Canes used in approved schools were too thick and caused bruises to boys’ backsides, but not so much pain, a UK government committee reported in 1952. It was alarmed by the number of boys who ran away. It recommended a longer and thinner cane should be used.
An approved school
was a type of residential institution where young people could
be sent by a court, usually for committing offences but sometimes because they
were deemed to be beyond parental control. They were modelled on ordinary
boarding schools, and it was relatively easy to leave without permission. This
set approved schools apart from borstals, a tougher and more enclosed kind of
youth prison.
As we
saw here as late as 1978, the were reintroducing the
cane in one approved school.
Canes
too rigid, says committee
Canes used in approved schools for senior boys are too
thick and rigid and cause more bruising than pain, according to a Government
committee which has been reviewing corporal punishment in prisons, borstal
institutions, approved schools and remand homes.
The committee in their report issued today,
recommended that existing canes should be abolished and a longer and thinner
type introduced. Corporal punishment is accepted as necessary if discipline in
approved schools is to be maintained satisfactorily.
It is emphasised that “brutality which was once a
deplorable feature of some establishments has now disappeared.”
Extracted from Newcastle
Evening Chronical, 1 January 1952.
Picture credit: Sting
Pictures
Comments
Post a Comment