Swats, Whacks Won’t Make Dent In Violence Anti-Flogging Spanking Common, Not Effective

Mississippi just plain has it backward.

Crime won’t stop with a good spanking.

Instead, a growing body of evidence suggests spanking actually may increase the chance of violent behavior and, by extension, violent crime.

The Mississippi House of Representatives, frustrated over the rise in crime, recently passed a bill that would allow judges to order paddlings instead of jail for juvenile offenders, petty crooks and others living a life of crime.

This notion of a few swats for the cause of good behavior has spread to other states, too. Washington’s legislators are toying with the idea of allowing teachers to spank kids in school.

Crime, bad behavior and rudeness in schools and on the streets surely are vexing to the law-abiding.

If simple answers could solve complex problems, then a few swats might do a lot.

But other than embarrassing someone and raising a red spot on the rump, there is nothing to be said for spankings.

If there were some more positive result, our crime already should be in check because a National Family Violence Survey from 1985 suggested 90 percent of parents swatted their children at home.

Since 1985, the violent crime rate among kids, who were swatted then and are teenagers now, has gone up by at least 33 percent.

And a growing amount of evidence suggests our society’s quick leap to the strap actually may be teaching kids and young adults that violence is OK.

Could it be that all this spanking and swatting at home, coupled with all the fighting and killing on television, leads kids to conclude that violence, particularly when mixed with crime, is a viable option in this country?

Murray S. Straus, founder and director of the University of New Hampshire’s Family Research Lab, has disturbing evidence that spanking and so-called “virtuous violence” have an effect opposite of what many parents expect.

Straus found that children with serious conduct problems actually improve their conduct when their parents stop spanking them.

Yes, spanking is common, but every parent who has spanked a child also knows that setting clear limits, rewarding good behavior and simply being present in a child’s life are better tools for reshaping behavior.

To genuinely cope with crime and violence, we need to look somewhere besides the woodshed for answers.

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