Quote:
Originally Posted by Neal Stevens
Oberon, charts. Explain?
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Just really some information to bring to the debate, in a way it shows that corporal punishment does not necessarily affect crime rates in any meaningful manner. If you compare homicides per person in nations with and without it, there is no noticable correlation.
For example, a good portion of Western Europe doesn't use corporal punishment (if not all of it) and the homicide rate is lower than the US, and yet Russia, who also doesn't use corporal punishment has crime rate which is higher than the US, but a lower one than Uganda which has the death penalty.
Of course, you might say that this is because of the quality of life difference between Uganda, Russia, Western Europe and the US.
So, a more accurate comparison would be between two More Economically Developed Countries, but obviously population wise we cannot compare a single nation of Western Europe with that of the US...so instead it would be better to compare the whole of Western Europe with a population of around 397 million with the United States with a population of around 318 million.
So, Western Europe (without corporal punishment) vs the US (with [although I realise it varies from state to state]), and if you compare the murder rates per 100,000 inhabitants you find that in Western Europe it is 0.9 and in the United States it is 4.8, so even with a comparable population size and comparable living quality there is a greater murder rate in the US than in Western Europe. Therefore, one
could certainly draw the conclusion that corporal punishment is no deterrent to those committing homicides.
Of course, there are possibly other factors that are outside of this threads scope that might affect the homicide rates in comparison between the US and Western Europe, but nevertheless it does show that corporal punishment does not necessarily equal a lower homicide rate.