p4f 014 Judicial Caning
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				In certain countries the penal code is being reformed. As an alternative to either a prison sentence or a monetary fine, defendants convicted of petty crimes may opt to undergo corporal punishment instead. A worried young woman now faces just such a decision. For having been repeatedly caught sneaking rides on public transportation, she has been ordered to serve a year in jail or submit to 45 strokes of the cane.
				Greatly distressed, she calls up a friend to find out more about the caning option. This friend had the dubious pleasure of receiving 50 strokes just a few months earlier. She relates her painful experience fully: how she was examined by a doctor, how she had to go to the toilet while being watched to make sure she didn´t urinate during punishment, and how she was strapped down naked on the caning frame to receive her 50 strokes.
				And it was much the same for our worried young woman: a painful punishment administered to her in the name of Law and Order.
					Commentary
				The nations of the world should reconsider the idea of Corporal Punishment for petty crimes. This would be a very suitable alternative to prison sentences or monetary fines. Incarceration rarely results in any fundamental social rehabilitation, but it does contribute to employee turnover in the workplace and to strains on basic family relationships. And neither is fining people a very effective form of punishment: the poor just get a bit poorer while the rich simply pay their fines out of petty cash and forget about it. But Corporal Punishment in the form of a proper caning is felt more or less equally by all, and it´s a sentence every offender would well remember; furthermore, it would spare the state the on-going cost of caring for more prisoners. And especially in the case of juvenile offenders, caning should be restored as a legitimate method of correction since everywhere we look we can see their growing lack of common respect for persons and property and their increasing tendency toward violence. For the young, entering prison often becomes the gateway to a criminal career because it is there that they first meet any real criminals.