Should we continue to cane convicts?
By RACHEL LEOW
WARNING: This post contains an article with highly graphic descriptions and a video with images of physical torture. If you are squeamish about such things, or are under 18 years old, please do not read on. theCICAK is not liable for any emotional pain or otherwise that you may suffer as a result of reading the article or watching the video.
In 1757, a man named Robert-François Damiens burst out of the shadows of the streets of Paris and plunged a knife into King Louis XV, who, perhaps most unfortunately for Monsieur Damiens, was widely known to his people as le Bien-Aimé, or “the Beloved.” The monarch survived, and the sentence was swift: Damiens was condemned to die in a manner that was to gain him eternal historical notoriety. As philosopher Michel Foucault memorably described in his book “Discipline and Punish,�? Damiens was to be carted to the Place de Grève, where:
on a scaffold that will be erected there, the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms, thighs and claves with red-hot pincers; his right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide, [will be] burnt with sulphur; and, on those places where the flesh will be torn away, [there shall be poured] molten lead, boiling oil, burning resin, wax and sulphur melted together… and then his body [shall be] drawn and quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds.
The execution took place largely according to plan — except that the horses proved wholly unqualified for the strenuous task of drawing a man apart, even when two more of the poor beasts were added. Damiens’ limbs finally had to be sawed off manually.
Today, we have come quite a long way from this. The reason historians have such detailed records of “The Damiens Affair,�? as it is invoked today with a shudder, is because the entire spectacle took place in public.
In contrast, state-sponsored deaths today, even though purportedly more “humane,�? have been largely squirrelled away from the public eye into the dingy basements of penitentiaries, where a needle might be somewhat abashedly administered while officials look on solemnly from the shadows. State-sponsored corporal punishment — whipping, flogging etc. — takes place within prison walls, where the only other witnesses are the quavering row of people soon to face the same themselves.
And there is an increasing amount of moral pressure today to do away with both these “cruel, inhuman and degrading” practices altogether.
Yet, even if it is much less of an obscene public affair than it was 220 years ago, Malaysia is one of 69 countries in the world which retains the death penalty, and one of at least 17 countries in the world that still widely practices corporal punishment. Caning in Malaysia is a stock penalty for crimes ranging from vandalism, drug violation and overstayed visas to the more heinous infractions, such as rape, assault and homicide. Unlike the Damiens Affair, however, corporal and capital punishment are not conflated (no man who has been sentenced to death can be caned), and corporal punishment is highly regulated in its execution, from the requisite medical examination of “fitness to receive punishment�? down to the standardization of the cane’s dimensions; 1.09m long and 1.25cm in diameter.
Given these relatively “humane” restrictions, then, it is perhaps understandable that V. K. Chin could opine rather phlegmatically in August 2004 that “the government should speed up cases involving illegal immigrants so that they could be whipped and sent home immediately… There is really not much point to just round them up and send them home without any meaningful punishment…Holding them for any period before their deportation is an unnecessary drain on our financial resources and so it is better to just whip them and send them home, otherwise they will not learn their lesson�?. Rather like a mother who has apprehended a naughty child sticking their fingers into the Nutella jar (come, own up, you have all done this), the government’s role here is to literally spank these denizens and send them on their way.
But is it really so simple an issue? I’ve noticed that corporal punishment is notoriously easy to talk about with great nonchalance, because the sort of corporal punishment that most of us are acquainted with tends towards the odd clobbering, backhand slap or pinch from a parent figure, or at worst, a full-out beating with the dreaded feather-duster. The idea of it is inherently domestic, remedial and generally suffered with an indignity and resentment that mellows over time.
Can the same really be said for this?
DISCLAIMER: Again, this video contains graphic and highly unpleasant images. Please do not watch if you are under 18 years old, or are sensitive to such material.
theCICAK wishes to open a discussion on this video, which was posted on YouTube on 23 January this year. The felon in question was convicted of rape and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 20 strokes of the cane (out of a maximum punishment of 24 strokes).
Some points to consider
Do criminals really deserve such torture? There is a kind of cognitive dissonance between vindication and mercy; in the case of caning, we want to punish serial rapists, but we flinch when watching the video (at least, I hope you did). Is it possible to reconcile the two impulses? Is Amnesty International correct in its assessment that caning is “cruel, inhuman and degrading�?, and that “such punishment should have no place in the world today�??
Is taking a “hard stand�? preferable to “going soft�? on criminals? This article contrasts Singapore’s stentorian and punitive attitude to crime with Britain’s “relaxed attitude�? and “over-indulgence�? of their prisoners (going so far as to award them Christmas presents). Is incarceration and rehabilitation really a better method of crime deterrence than something punitive, like caning? What about people who just don’t learn?
Does caning tarnish Malaysia’s international reputation? There have been several cases of foreigners receiving the Malaysian Caning Experience, and the infamous case of Michael P. Fay just next door in Singapore provoked worldwide controversy when the boy was caned under charges of vandalism in 1994.
And one YouTube user’s comment on the video accuses Malaysia and Singapore of being “barbaric fascist dictatorships�? and “sick, perverted, Nazi f—s�?. Should perceptions like these matter?
Under most countries’ legislation, including Malaysia and Singapore’s, women may not be caned under any circumstances; this derives from Britain’s Whipping of Female Offenders Act of 1805, which exempts women from any form of judicial corporal punishment. (Britain, incidentally, is also responsible for bringing the practice of caning to Malaysia and Singapore). If we cannot stomach corporal punishment for women, how can we countenance it for men? Or vice versa: if we flog criminal men, shouldn’t we flog women guilty of equivalent crimes too?
Should we really demonstrate caning to children to instill fear and deter them from crime when they grow up?
With videos like this or Saddam’s execution up on YouTube for the world to see, how far have we really come from Damiens and the voyeuristic crowd that followed his cart all the way to the Place de Grève, hooting as the executioner briskly rolled his sleeves up and tore pieces of Damiens’ flesh from his thighs with a pair of custom-made steel pincers?
I’ll give my own answer to this: not very far at all. In my opinion, we are simply squirrelling away an impulse that still persists; today, instead of parading our brutality to the town square, we consign it shamefacedly to the basements of our penitentiaries and psyches alike. And I’d even argue that the same goes for the practice of corporal - and capital - punishment, both of which inhere as much in our world today as in the Paris of 1757, when Damiens’ ragged torso was finally, unceremoniously tossed onto the smoldering woodpile, then as evermore under the mesmerized gaze of this oddly barbarous civilization we call our own.
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RACHEL LEOW is an editor for theCICAK.
Rachel is currently reading, writing and breathing a Masters in History, and occasionally wonders how people who never bother catching up on the past can pontificate at such length on the present and the future. She also smokes too much shisha. Visit her site.
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Comment of the week
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i remember not too long ago there was this big hue and cry about this vietnamese australian being sentenced to death in SIngapore for trafficking drugs. Huge protests and demonstrations were organised in Australia to pressure Singapore’s hard stanced government to give in and let the poor boy live. Weeks before the excution, there was so much media attention that the executioner went public. He was naturally axed and the poor boy executed. What really puzzles me were the events that occured prior to that. Where were these protesters and demonstrators when the masterminds of the Bali Bombings were executed? Have we no mercy for them too? Surely, Amnesty International could have highlighted this case, if indeed we are all merciful creatures. The fact that your article fails to look further into the story, into the rape victim and the atrocities commited against her shows how you’ve intelligently deceived your audience. Gandhi once said, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”, but he forgot that not everyone was like him. (btw, he was assasinated by a hindu extremist)
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Like it or not, that’s how the world works.
You pay a butcher and meatpacker to slaughter the cow and make the sausages.
You pay taxes and delegate the task of making difficult decisions to a distant bureaucrat and/or politician (e.g. to decide whether to punish a criminal? to build a dam?)
You also pay taxes to collect arms and send of some young kid you don’t know to fight a distant war to “defend freedom�.
Society is designed in such a way where difficult tasks and responsibilities are delegated to others. Dirty and difficult issues are desensitised. Hanging someone may be morally wrong, but nonetheless, it can be argued (I won’t) that hanging that person may lead to a better society. The point is society has delegated this difficult task (the decision to punish, and the punishment itself) to the powers that be.
It is part of our nature to want to let others do the job while we ourselves prefer the comforts of ignorance so that Conscience can sleep soundly.
But after reading Fast Food Nation, watching war films and reading blogs like this, is Conscience still asleep?
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well your goverment should even give stricter measures on rape…caning is still too light a punishment…just imagine how can he rape such a young child…?? just for the sake of satisfying his lust..he should be placed on an electric chair..or better castrated.
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One thing I’ve always been amazed at, is the desire to parade a criminal in the high street and show off to all and sundry the sort of punishment society was dealing out to these evil acts. As if such a display was evidence of the moral uprightness of a society.
On the other hand, Rachel’s own argument that we are squirreling away corporal punishment is also as fallacious. Simply because it is done in a controlled and convenient environment, does this mean that we are hiding our shameful acts behind silent walls? Why should we inherently place some meaning onto the location of the punishment?
Rachel argues along the lines of public caning = honest, private caning = dishonest. My point is, why not private caning = normal, public caning = sadistic?
There is really little to argue about in terms of who is able to watch a criminal getting caned. The only salient questions are that of whether corporal punishment should exist at all and the gender bias. The latter, I think is one that is rooted in a bigger issue but the former has no inherent moral value to it. Society simply picks the punishment it sees fit for any given crime. It’s just a case of pros and cons, not rights and wrongs.
Because, let’s not kid ourselves. None of this is really for the purpose of rehabilitation as much as it is a form of deterrent.
My principle is that as long as it causes no permanent damage - besides some scarring - then I don’t see how it should not be considered as a plausible form of punishment simply because of its cruelty. Is any sort of punishment supposed to be uncruel? Who decides what is cruel and what is not?
After all, jailtime takes away part of a criminal’s lifespan, an irreversible process. How humane is that? At least wounds heal.
If being humane is really the issue here, why not allow the convict to choose his/her own form of punishment? Freedom of choice and all that jazz, innit?
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Question #1: Do criminals deserve such torture?
Did the victim deserve to be raped?
In cases like rape and incest, I think the criminal deserves whatever he dishes out.
So screw the cane, shove something up his anus.
Let the punishment fit the crime. So instead of doing the above, we cane the rapists. I consider that fair. However, there should be a clause which states that a male relative of the rape victim carries out the punishment on the person. Therefore, should the person wish to show forgiveness, the victim is allowed to do so.
Question #2:What if the person never learns?
Life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. Simple as that. If he’s found to be insane, send him to a nuthouse.
Question #3: Should perceptions like these matter?
Are we to agree with the perception that it is unacceptable to hang someone but you can fry them and waste electricity, gas them with chemicals like what the Nazi’s did to the Jews and put them to sleep like a chronically ill dog?
Why don’t we send them our convicts, then?
Truth be told, Malaysia and Singapore do not have the land mass to simply store everyone away for life imprisonment.
We do not have the luxury to build prison after prison to store murderers for life sentences.
Also, we do not have the zeal to do beheadings and stoning people to death in public like the Saudi’s do.
In the subject of “if women cannot be caned, why should men”, I am of the opinion that these is simply common courtesy.
Heck if there are women inmates in prison who wish to be whipped to lower the duration of their sentences, by all means, go ahead. I have no problem with it. It’s a proven fact that women can cope with more pain than guys. It would probably be recorded and posted on Youtube for some guy’s S&M pleasure.
Question #4: Should we cane kids?
Yes and no. I would think that we should not physically use a cane, but use corporal punishment at a certain age group (7-10 years old) for extremely severe cases. However, if someone out there is still caning a teenager for coming after curfew, I would think that’s a bit screwed up.
The French were sadistic nutcases, and medieval Europe was full of such punishments. The French did it to the guy listed above. Heck, they put a King’s successor in a cast iron mask for life. The English did it to William Wallace and to Cromwell’s dead body. Heck, they even beheaded a King.
I am all for corporal punishments for criminals, because, like Shannon Teoh writes, prison takes time, which I consider more precious than pain of punishment. A quick end of the punishment is also part of justice. So the main question would be which is actually more humane.
A prolonged sentence to a prison without any chance of ever getting out and living a normal life, or a quick punishment with painful retribution, but a light at the end of that tunnel?
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It’s simple. If you don’t want to be caned, don’t do the things that’ll lead you to being caned. It’s just that simple.
And since most of the discussion has been based on caning for raping, as a victim, you’d probably want the worse for the rapist - dead, most probably. But then again, we’ve read so much about family members doing the raping, and most of these cases not reported. So, I would say, the very few that ARE reported, cane away!
So I don’t really know why the issue is whether or not we should cane convicts. Why not say, should we or should be not rape others?
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I am for the preservation of capital punishment.
I feel that there is a danger when a country goes too soft in terms of punishment. One of the causes (but not the only one) for the so called Western Decadance is because they have swung too far towards ‘counselling’ criminals instead of punishing them.
Although I don’t agree with some aspects of Malaysia’s crime punishment system, like hanging for drug pushers, I currently still am of the opinion that judges should have the option to hang particularly gruesome murderers, and so on.
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Why you should care even though you are unlikely to rape/kill? From the top of my mind I can think of a few:
- Type 1 errors (false positives): the likelihood of a court of law finding you guilty even though you may actually be innocent
- The role of prisons/punishment: is it to deter others, to rehabilitate, to avenge or to separate troublemakers from the rest of society?
- Delegation: you don’t think twice about encouraging punishment because you the decision has already been delegated away from you. But imagine yourself as a judge, delivering the sentence. Would you chicken out if you had to make the choice?
And anyway, I would have greater doubt in the “remorse” of someone who was caned (a-quick-let’s-get-it-done-with-get-me-out-of-here), as opposed to one who had done “quality” time.
I’d rather live in a society that self-reflects, than in one which fears.
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I think roy’s opinion does not take into account the issue of land!
We don’t have the land!
What should we do?
Build high-rise prisons?!
On the issue of wrongfully accused or innocent convicts, you make it sound like the moment they’re sentenced they are taken out back and whipped with a cane…I can assure you, their corporal punishment will only be started after their appeals are thrown out and are guaranteed their jail term.
And in Malaysia and Singapore, I have yet to hear a convict on appeal being caned, nor have I heard cases of wrong accusations on cases of rape, murder, incest or drug trafficking.
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You guys need to find somewhere else to re-post the video. YouTube has removed it as being inappropriate, apparently…I couldn’t get it.
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You’re right, megabigBLUR. YouTube did remove the video. Arrghhh…
We will ask the guy who made the video whether he has it in another format. Check this page soon.
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>>It’s simple. If you don’t want to be caned, don’t do the things that’ll lead you to being caned. It’s just that simple.
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Like several others replying to this blog. I find this article is more concerned with the rights of thr perpetrator of the crime against another person rather than for the victim who was given no choice in being forcibly raped.
I don’t know how effective lenient practices, especially in the western countries have actually been in deterring such acts.
Certainly, even caning for rape will not be 100% effective in stopping it but how effective would not having caning and incarceration be in reducing such incidence?
Back in the 1960s and 70s, teachers in schools may have abused their right to apply the cane on students, who incidentally had no strict regulation governing its use, unlike prisoners in jail but now that caning has been stopped in school, the level of indiscipline has increased.
So, I can only conclude that taking away judicial caning will only result in more, rather than less incidence of rape and other offenses against other people, unless and until a viable alternative is found.
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I also want to add that it’s ironic that organisations and activists concerned about human rights regard the perpetrator of teh crime as human and entitled to rights, while the viction is non-human and entitle to know rights.
So to transform from human to non-human and from with rights to no rights, all you need is for someone to rape you.
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They should be caned. And as for rapist who rapes and murder their victims, they should be castrated and hanged to death just like the drug traffickers…
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Imo illegal immigrants should be caned 24 strokes and not 3.
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Well IMO I’m glad you’re not a lawmaker.
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Aiyah why lar still got people support caning? It’s barbaric lah. You think he’ll so brave when one on one with the samseng-samseng ah? We oledi eat k-chai won’t feel any pain oso lar. Whack him till die lar.
What’s wrong with selling drugs lah? No demand then no supply right? so don’t blame us only..we provide a service only ok..why don’t you blame our government give firearms to those malay samseng during may 13 huh? bloody cowards scared to death fight 1 on 1 hv to use army to win…wait lah we also got arsenal now…chemistry-4 u know hehehe
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Yes,we should have CP as part of our criminal justice system,and certainly for all kinds of violence and assaults.Those of use who went to school in the days of CP know about it’s deterrent effect,and not just on those who were caned.It doesn’t have to Singapore style,just very painful.
And why be so concerned for the criminal?It should be there to protect the normal folk in society.If people want to harm others,they should be prepared to suffer the consequences of their actions.We all have choices in life,if someone wants to commit violence, they should suffer for it.Bring back the birch,and maybe we’d see a reduction in violent crime.At least people would feel there’s still some justice in this world.
The image of the smirking young thug should be banished forever,and it should be criminals who live in fear!
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