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History of Corporal Punishment

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Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Synonyms

Flogging; Physical punishment

Overview

In the gallery of penal practices, corporal punishment, or the dispensing of bodily harm in response to or as a deterring measure against crime, occupies a stable position as a marker of cruelty, especially when condoned by a central authority such as a state. From Cesare Beccaria to Émile Durkheim to Max Weber, and especially under the more recent and diverse influences of social philosophers Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault, modern students of punishment have construed cultures that allow physical pain to be legitimately, let alone publicly, inflicted as out of step with the process of civilization and as retaining a relic of an unenlightened past. Corporal punishment, however, has a far more complex history than a long and steady fall from grace, an inverse trajectory as it were to the progress of humanity (Scott 1938; Yelyr 1941). For, fluctuations in frequency aside, the past uses of corporal punishment were never devoid of reason,...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    G. Geltner

Authors
  1. G. Geltner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to G. Geltner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  3. Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    David Weisburd

  4. Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel

    David Weisburd

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Geltner, G. (2014). History of Corporal Punishment. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_276

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_276

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5689-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5690-2

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