Use of Corporal Punishment in Africa and Its Alternatives Free Essay Example, 6250 words

Physical punishment, as distinguished from pecuniary punishment or a fine; any kind of punishment inflicted on the body is referred to as corporal punishment. To enforce discipline or as a penalty for a crime, both children and adult aberrant have been subjected to corporal punishments all over the world from historical times to even now. Corporal punishments include acts of beating; either with hand or some instruments such as stick or belt, slapping, smacking, spanking, rough handling, punching, kicking, shaking, pinching, burning, scratching, pulling hairs, throwing, tying or hitting to cause pain by any other means (Strauss and Stuart, 1999). Besides these, the non-physical forms of punishment such as humiliating with words, sneering, threatening, ridiculing, scaring, denigrating, denying meals or using as scapegoats (Burnett et al. , 2010) are also studied as corporal punishments and form a subject of this study. A study of the history of human civilization is characterized by violence and physical assault in form of wars, insults, murders, suicides, feuding, rapes and sports activities demanding aggression and killer instincts (Walker, 2001). Irrespective of the nature of violence being analysed and ontological ground selected, violence is an integral part of human nature, a latent force defining all of the social and interpersonal relationships (Aijmer, 2000). We will write a custom essay sample on Use of Corporal Punishment in Africa and Its Alternatives or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page The African continent, in general, has been linked with violence in various forms, from reports as early as fifteenth-century colonization by European powers.