Corporal punishment, sometimes referred to as "physical punishment" or "physical discipline", has been defined as the use of physical force, no matter how light, to cause deliberate bodily pain or discomfort in response to undesired behavior. In the United States, school corporal punishment takes the form of a school teacher or administrator striking a student's buttocks with a wooden paddle (often called "spanking" or "paddling"). The strikes are referred to as "swats", "licks" or "pops".
The practice was held constitutional in the 1977 Supreme Court case Ingraham v. Wright, where the Court held that the "cruel and unusual punishments" clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not apply to disciplinary corporal punishment in public schools, being restricted to the treatment of prisoners convicted of a crime.Oluwole, Joseph (September 23, 2014). "Ingraham v. Wright". Encyclopædia Britannica. In the years since, a number of U.S. states have banned corporal punishment in public schools. The most recent state to outlaw it was Idaho in 2023, and the latest de facto statewide ban was in Kentucky on November 2, 2023, when the last school district in the state that had not yet banned it did so. In 2014, a student was struck in a U.S. public school an average of once every 30 seconds.Strauss, Valerie (September 18, 2014). "19 states still allow corporal punishment in school". The Washington Post.
As of 2024, corporal punishment is legal in private schools in every U.S. state except Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, legal in public schools in 17 states, and practiced in 12 of the states.
Corporal punishment in school has been outlawed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and most developed countries in Europe, which makes the United States one of only two developed countries where corporal punishment in school is still allowed, the other being Singapore. The practice is banned in 128 countries.
The USA has signed but not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the US entered a reservation stating that “the United States considers itself bound by Article 7 to the extent that ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ means the cruel and unusual treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States”.
History
Corporal punishment was widely used in U.S. schools during the 19th and 20th centuries as a way to motivate students to perform better academically and maintain objectively good standards of behavior.Middleton, Jacob. The Experience of Corporal Punishment in Schools, 1890–1940, History of Education, Vol. 37, No. 2, March 2008, pp. 253–275 The practice was generally considered a fair and rational way to discipline school children, particularly given its parallels to the criminal justice system, and teachers in the late 19th century were encouraged to employ corporal punishment over other types of discipline.Landon, Joseph. The Principles and Practice of Teaching and Class Management, Alfred M. Holdon, 1899. In the English-speaking world, the right of teachers to discipline children is enshrined in the common-law doctrine in loco parentis (Latin for "in the place of the parent"), which places a legal responsibility on authority-holders to take on the functions of a parent in some instances.Don R. Bridinger, (1957). "Discipline by Teachers in Loco Parentis" Cleveland State Law Review.
Some of the earliest parental opposition to corporal punishment in schools occurred in England in 1899 in the case Gardiner v. Bygrave, in which a teacher in London was acquitted after a parent took him to court for assault after he physically punished their son. This case set a precedent that schools could discipline children in the way they saw fit, regardless of the wishes of the parent regarding the physical punishment of their child. Over the next century, the conception of corporal punishment as a common component of disciplining students in public schools would be challenged in various countries, but opposition to corporal punishment in schools would not make it to the U.S. Supreme Court until 1977.
Federal law In 1977, the question of the legality of corporal punishment in schools was brought to the Supreme Court. At this point, only New Jersey (1867), Massachusetts (1971), Hawaii (1973), and Maine (1975) had outlawed physical punishment in public schools, and just New Jersey had also outlawed the practice in private schools.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of corporal punishment in schools in the landmark Ingraham v. Wright case. The court ruled five to four that the corporal punishment of James Ingraham, who was restrained by his assistant principal and paddled by the principal over twenty times, ultimately requiring medical attention, did not violate the Eighth Amendment, which protects citizens from cruel and unusual punishment. They further concluded that corporal punishment did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since teachers or administrators administering excessive punishment can face criminal charges.Irwin A. Hyman; James H. Wise "Corporal Punishment in American Education: Readings in History, Practice, and Alternatives". Corporal Punishment in American Education: Readings in History, Practice, and Alternatives, Temple University Press, 1979. This case established a precedent of "reasonable, but not excessive" punishment of students and was criticized by some scholars as "an apparent low point in American teacher-student relations."Debran Rowland "The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Women's Rights in America". The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Women's Rights in America Sphinx Pub, 2004.
The Ingraham v. Wright ruling firmly pushed the decision of whether or not to outlaw corporal punishment in schools squarely onto state legislators. A majority of state bans on corporal punishment have occurred in the intervening years since 1977 with the largest push for abolition taking place between 1985 and 1994.
State law The first state to abolish school corporal punishment was New Jersey in 1867. In 1894, a Newark bill challenged this ruling, arguing that whipping should be legal if parents consented to it; the New Jersey House defeated that bill, with one doctor's testimonial asserting that the bill's provisions "would expose children who did not have thoughtful and careful parents to the cruel discrimination of the teachers.". The second state to ban corporal punishment in schools was Massachusetts, 104 years later in 1971. As of 2024, corporal punishment is banned in public schools in 33 states and the District of Columbia (see list below).Lyman, Rick (September 30, 2006)."In Many Public Schools, the Paddle Is No Relic". The New York Times. The use of corporal punishment in private schools is legally permitted in nearly every state. Only New Jersey,United States - Extracts from State legislation at World Corporal Punishment Research. Iowa,Iowa statutes, 280.21. Maryland, New York, and Illinois prohibit it in both public and private schools. Corporal punishment is still used in schools to a significant (though declining)"Corporal Punishment and Paddling Statistics by State and Race", Center for Effective Discipline. extent in some public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
Current state law State Ban status (public) Ban status (private)AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaIn the state of Louisiana, the use of corporal punishment in public schools is not entirely prohibited by law, but its application has been restricted and made conditional upon the mandatory consent of the student's parents or legal guardians. Permission must be expressly granted in writing and is valid solely for the corresponding school year. Furthermore, the use of physical force is strictly prohibited on students with special needs or individual accommodation plans.MaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming
Trends +States that legally allow corporal punishment in public schoolsAlabamaKansasOklahomaArizonaKentuckySouth CarolinaArkansasLouisianaTennesseeFloridaMississippiTexasGeorgiaMissouriWyomingIndianaNorth Carolina The prevalence of school corporal punishment has decreased since the 1970s, declining from four percent of the total number of children in schools in 1978 to less than one percent in 2014. This reduction is partially explained by the increasing number of states banning corporal punishment from public schools between 1974 and 1994.
The number of instances of corporal punishment in U.S. schools has also declined in recent years. In the 2002–2003 school year, federal statistics estimated that 300,000 children were disciplined with corporal punishment at school at least once. In the 2006–2007 school year, this number was reduced to 223,190 instances.Pate, Matthew and Gould, Laurie. Corporal Punishment Around the World. ABC-CLIO, 2012 According to the Department of Education, over 166,000 students in public schools were physically punished during the 2011–2012 school year. In the 2013–2014 academic year, this number was reduced to 109,000 students.Sparks, Sarah and Harwin, Alex. "Corporal Punishment Use Found in Schools in 21 States." Education Week," August 23, 2016.
As of the 2011–2012 academic year, 19 states legally allowed school corporal punishment. Approximately 14 percent of the schools in those 19 states reported the use of corporal punishment, and one in eight students attended schools that use this practice.
In 2022, the number of the students spanked by their teachers dropped to circa 70,000. In April 2023 there are still 17 states where this practice has not been officially banned.
Procedure Rules Each state has the authority to define corporal punishment in its state laws, so bans on corporal punishment differ from state to state. For example, in Texas, teachers are permitted to paddle children and to use "any other physical force" to control children in the name of discipline; in Alabama, the rules are more explicit: teachers are permitted to use a "wooden paddle approximately in length, wide and thick."Pickens County Board of Education (2015). "The Pickens County Board of Education Board Policy Manual."
Students can be physically punished from kindergarten to the end of high school, meaning that even legal adults who have reached the age of majority are sometimes spanked by school officials. In these states, parents or students are often (but not always) given a choice between corporal punishment and other disciplinary measures such as suspension or detention.
Statistics The majority of students who experience corporal punishment reside in the Southern United States; Department of Education data from 2011 to 2012 show that 70 percent of students subjected to corporal punishment were from the five states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas, with the latter two states accounting for 35 percent of corporal punishment cases.
Behaviors that elicit corporal punishment