Ok, so now we are stuck with algae eating, rotten food to make fuel out of and then we sell it to those who make cultures with to make yoghurt, which brings us back to food...huh?
Spanky

alanpoi, you cannot be as close to the truth than with your comment on South African crime and the so-called corporal punishment they recieve. My wife was attacked two weeks before leaving South Africa last year in broad daylight, the criminals over there have got it in their tiny minds that crime does indeed pay, as if and when they are caught, they get a cell with tv, comfortable bed and a chair, this along with three meals a day. The lifers get it even better! It will take about 200 years for S.A.to come right, as it did in the USA.
Spanky

Thank you all for your comments. I received a small snapshot of how people feel in relation to this subject.
Alanpoi, sorry you were having a bad day yesterday. Shame on you Bugsy. Your stirring didn't exactly help (tongue in cheek.)
Spanky, I fully agree that back in the "bad ol' days" some teachers, yes even "good Christian" brothers and sisters were insane child abusers. I too witnessed what amounted to floggings of defenseless children in the class room and continued to be appalled to this very day by what I saw, but I rather feel that the pendulum has swung too far the other way in the last couple of decades when it comes to petty criminals walking out of court with no disincentive at all to curb their behaviors. Even though my topic drifted into the class room, it was originally aimed at the petty crim.
Alanpoi, I hear you concerning those who fall through the cracks, but I believe I covered that aspect by suggesting in one of my posts about having in place safeguards such as a mental health assessment prior to punishment. I full well realise that a huge percentage of people incarcerated in the United States are those suffering mental illness and the same is beginning to happen right here in Australia.
There's no simple answer to crime, but I tend to think that the big players in the criminal world are either born into it (criminal relatives) or have graduated from minor criminal activity. It's in the latter that I believe crime statistics can be minimised by corporal punishment.

I don't like this idea at all.

While I don't agree with the smacking bad, I think the idea of having corporal punishment as part of the justice system would be all kinds of foolish.

For starters, it sends the message that violence is okay (just as long as its the establishment doing it).
I don't like that at all - it makes it harder to send the 'violence is unacceptable' message.

Secondly, it'd be a woeful deterrent. Unless you're going to do such physical damage to the person that it will cause a long-term disability, it's the kind of thing you'd get over pretty quick as oppsoed to incarceration. You could just grit your teeth and it would all be over.

Whilst I appreciate your contribution TLTR, I'm afraid the approach of trying to send a message that "violence isn't acceptable" simply isn't working. And I don't know about gritting your teeth until it's over. Love it or hate it, physical pain is proven to be an unfortunate way of getting what those in charge want.
I'm fairly certain that those who had a taste of, for example, the strap across their backs, quite apart from the humiliation would never wish to endure the same again. Being forewarned of double the dose for the next offense would certainly put me off.

TurnRightThenLeft,

Isn't incarceration also a form of violence?

To be an effective deterrent, the punishment obviously has to be commensurate with the crime: if that means long-term disability, then the criminal is probably dangerous to the public and must remain in jail anyway. Also, isn't being imprisoned for a long term a form of a long-term disability anyway? it only costs the public much more than an invalid-pension.