Yet the myth remains that only woodshed discipline in early youth keeps boys from a life of crime, and that respect for authority is promoted only by painful procedures that induce fear and resentment of authority. Let's take a good hard look at the facts about the effects of corporal punishment on crime. After Effects of Physical Punishment Adrenalin output increases sharply during fear, anger and physical punishment. When this is prolonged or often repeated, the endocrine balance fails to return to baseline. The victim becomes easily angered and prone to poor impulse control and spontaneous violent outbursts.
Educational achievement is affected both directly and indirectly.
Studies of prisoners, delinquents, school drop-outs, college freshmen and successful professionals are compared in the following composite report. Delinquents were interviewed by Dr. Ralph Welsh in Bridgeport, Connecticut and by Dr. Alan Button in Fresno, California. Prisoner information was by courtesy of Hobart Banks, M.S.W., counselor of difficult prisoners at San Quentin Penitentiary, San Quentin, California. We should be asking about sequence. Parents of delinquents, all of them, report physical beating in the first ten to twelve years of the child's life, but rarely thereafter.