[h=3][Corporal Punishment in the] United States[/h] See also:
Paddle (spanking)
Individual US states have the power to ban corporal punishment in their schools. Currently, it is banned in public schools in 31 U.S. states and the
District of Columbia.[SUP]
[95][/SUP] In two of these states,
New Jersey[SUP]
[96][/SUP] and
Iowa,[SUP]
[97][/SUP] it is illegal in private schools as well. The 19 states that have not banned it are mostly in the South. It is still used to a significant (though declining)[SUP]
[98][/SUP] degree in some public schools in
Alabama,
Arkansas,
Georgia,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
Oklahoma,
Tennessee and
Texas.[SUP]
[95][/SUP]
In 1867
New Jersey became the first U.S. state to abolish corporal punishment in schools. The second was
Massachusetts 104 years later in 1971. The most recent state to outlaw school corporal punishment was
New Mexico in 2011.
Private schools in most states are exempt from state bans and may choose to use the paddle. Here too, most of those which actually do so are to be found in Southern states. These are largely, but by no means exclusively, Christian
evangelical or
fundamentalist schools.[SUP]
[3][/SUP][SUP]
[99][/SUP][SUP]
[100][/SUP]
Most urban public school systems, even in states where it is permitted, have abolished corporal punishment. Statistics collected by the federal government show that the use of the paddle has been declining consistently, in all states where it is used, over at least the past 20 years. The anti-spanking campaign
Center for Effective Discipline, extrapolating from federal statistics, estimates that the number of students spanked or paddled in 2006 in U.S. public schools was about 223,000.[SUP]
[98][/SUP]
Statistics show that black and Hispanic students are more likely to be paddled than white students,[SUP]
[98][/SUP] possibly because minority-race parents are more inclined to approve of it.[SUP]
[101][/SUP][SUP]
[102][/SUP] However, a study in Kentucky found that minority students were disproportionately targeted by discipline policies generally, not only corporal punishment.[SUP]
[103][/SUP]
Federal statistics consistently show that around 80% of school paddlings in the U.S. are of boys, most likely because boys exhibit more often than girls the kinds of misbehaviour for which corporal punishment is thought appropriate.[SUP]
[104][/SUP]
One study has alleged that students with disabilities are "subjected to corporal punishment at disproportionately high rates, approximately twice the rate of the general student population in some States".[SUP]
[105][/SUP]
Corporal punishment in American schools is administered to the seat of the student's trousers or skirt with a specially-made wooden paddle. This often used to take place in the classroom or hallway, but nowadays the punishment is usually given privately in the principal's office.
Most public school districts lay down detailed rules as to how the ceremony is to be carried out, and in many cases these are published in the school's student-parent handbook.[SUP]
[3][/SUP]
In 1983 a school administrator struggled with a student, trying to force her to bend over a chair to receive a paddling. During the struggle, the student fell against a desk, sustaining a serious injury to her back.[SUP]
[106][/SUP] In order to avoid similar incidents, a school district might adopt a rule which provides, "Corporal punishment shall not be administered if it requires holding a student or struggling with a student."[SUP]
[107][/SUP]
Increasingly, corporal punishment in US schools is, either explicitly or
de facto, a matter of choice for the student. Thus, the rules of the
Alexander City Schools provide, "No student is required to submit to corporal punishment."[SUP]
[108][/SUP] Many school handbooks provide that where a student refuses to submit to a paddling, he or she will receive some other punishment instead, such as suspension. Students are unlikely nowadays to be forcibly restrained while being paddled, as happened in the 1970 case which came to the Supreme Court in 1977 as
Ingraham v. Wright.[SUP]
[109][/SUP]
Many school districts also offer parents an opportunity to state whether or not they wish corporal punishment to be used on their sons and daughters. Typically, the parents fill out a form which is filed in the school office. In many districts this is an "opt-out" system. In others an "opt-in" system applies, whereby no student is so punished without explicit parental consent.
A bill to end the use of corporal punishment in schools was introduced into the United States House of Representatives in June 2010 during the 111th Congress.[SUP]
[110][/SUP][SUP]
[111][/SUP] The bill, H.R. 5628,[SUP]
[112][/SUP] was referred to the
United States House Committee on Education and Labor where it was not brought up for a vote. As of June 2011 a similar bill has not been re-introduced in the 112th Congress. A previous bill "to deny funds to educational programs that allow corporal punishment"[SUP]
[113][/SUP] was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives in 1991 by Representative
Major R. Owens. That bill, H.R. 1522, did not become law.
