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Birching is a form of corporal punishment with a birch rod, typically used to strike the recipient's bare buttocks, although occasionally the back and/or shoulders.
A birch rod (often shortened to "birch") is a bundle of leafless twigs bound together to form an implement for administering corporal punishment.
Contrary to what the name suggests, a birch rod is not a single rod and is not necessarily made from birch twigs, but can also be made from various other strong and smooth branches of trees or shrubs, such as willow. [1] A hazel rod is particularly painful; a bundle of four or five hazel twigs was used in the 1960s and 1970s on the Isle of Man, the last jurisdiction in Europe to use birching as a judicial penalty. [2]
Another factor in the severity of a birch rod is its size—i.e. its length, weight and number of branches. In some penal institutions, several versions were in use, which were often given names. For example, in Dartmoor Prison the device used to punish male offenders above the age of 16—weighing some 16 ounces (450 g), and 48 inches (1.2 m) long—was known as the senior birch. [ when? ]
In the 1860s, the Royal Navy abandoned the use of the cat o' nine tails on boy seamen. The cat had acquired a nasty reputation because of its use in prisons, and was replaced by the birch, with which the wealthy classes were more familiar, having been chastised with it during their schooling. [3] Around the same time, the civilian courts system followed the Navy's example and switched to birches for the judicial corporal punishment of boys and young men, where previously a whip or cat had been used. In an attempt to standardise the Navy's birches, the Admiralty had specimens called patterned birch (as well as a patterned cane), kept in every major dockyard, as birches had to be procured on land in quantities.
The term judicial birch generally refers to the severe type in use for court-ordered birchings, especially the Manx hazel birch. A 1951 memorandum (possibly confirming earlier practice) ordered all UK male prisons to use birches (and cats-o'-nine-tails) from only a national stock at South London's Wandsworth prison, where they were to be 'thoroughly' tested before being supplied in triplicate to a prison whenever required for use as prison discipline. [4]
By contrast, terms like " Eton birch" are used for a school birch made from smaller birch tree twigs.
Only if the recipient was a small child could he or she practicably be punished over the knee of the applicant. Otherwise the child would be bent over an object such as a chair. For judicial punishments the recipient could even be tied down if likely to move about too much or attempt to escape.
In some prisons and reformatories, a wooden apparatus known as birching donkey or birching pony was specially constructed for birchings. As there were no detailed rules, prisons and police stations devised, adapted and used many different contraptions under various names that juvenile and adult offenders were bent over for punishment. Some models also allowed a standing or leaning position for other implements.
A simple alternative position known from school discipline is horsing, where the person to be punished is held by the arms over the back of another person (e.g. a classmate), or on the shoulders of two or more colleagues. However, at Eton College and schools of similar standing, the recipient was made to kneel on a special wooden block.
Another device used to immobilise offenders was a birching table, used in Scotland, with two holes in it through which the offender's arms were inserted but otherwise left free and untied. The offender's feet were tied into position and a strap fastened immediately above the waist. [5]
Whatever position is adopted, care must be taken (e.g. by having the recipient's legs kept together) not to strike the back of the genitals.
It was the most common school and judicial punishment in Europe up to the mid-19th century, when caning gained increasing popularity. According to some accounts, even the legendary sting of the cat o' nine tails was less feared than the birch in certain prisons. The birch was always applied to the bare buttocks (as also on the Continent), a humiliation usually befalling boys (like the boy's cat, likewise on the naked posterior), the 'adult' cat to the back or shoulders of adults; although in the 20th century, judges increasingly ordered the birch rather than the cat, even for robbery with violence (the only offence for which adult judicial corporal punishment was ordered in the latter decades of its use in mainland Britain).
Birching featured in the French Revolution. One leader of the revolution, Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt, went mad, ending her days in an asylum after a public birching. On 31 May 1793 the Jacobin women seized her, stripped her naked, and flogged her on the bare bottom in the public garden of the Tuileries. [6] Judicial birching in 20th-century Britain was used much more often as a fairly minor punishment for male juveniles, typically for petty larceny, rather than as a serious penalty for adult men. This was applied to boys aged up to 14 in England and Wales, and up to 16 in Scotland. In this juvenile version, the birch was much lighter and smaller, and the birch was administered privately by a policeman, usually immediately after the magistrate's court hearing, either in a room in the court building or at the nearest police station.
In Lewis Carroll's early poem The Two Brothers, 1853, one laments: "Oh would I were back at Twyford School, Learning lessons in fear of the birch !" as his sadistic brother uses him as fish bait.
Today birching is rarely used as a judicial punishment, and it has also almost completely died out as a punishment for children.
In the United Kingdom, birching as a judicial penalty, in both its juvenile and adult versions, was abolished in 1948, but it was retained until 1962 as a punishment for violent breaches of prison discipline. The punishment of Birching and cat o' nine tails continued to be used in Northern Ireland into the 1940s. [7]
The Isle of Man caused a good deal of controversy by continuing to birch young offenders until 1976. [8] [9] The birch was also used on offending teenage boys until the mid-1960s on the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the Corporal Punishment Act 1953 allows the High Court to order males, in addition to another punishment (often concurrent with a prison term), to undergo corporal punishment in the form of either a 'flogging' with a knotted cat o' nine tails (made of cords, as in the Royal Navy tradition) or a 'whipping' with a 'rod' [i.e. switch] of tamarind, birch or other switches, and it allows the President to approve other instruments; in 2000, the minimum age was raised from 16 to 18, the legal threshold of adulthood. It may now be the only country in the world still officially using the birch.
In Scandinavia, the Baltics, Russia and Finland there is a tradition to strike one's own body with soaked birch twigs in the sauna or banya, as a form of massage and to increase blood circulation and open the pores. The twigs are chosen carefully and do not have their leaves removed, and are often softened by keeping them in hot water prior to use. Being struck by the twigs induces a pleasant stinging sensation but very little actual pain.
A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or paddling. When it is inflicted on adults, it may be inflicted on prisoners and slaves, and can involve methods such as whipping with a belt or a horsewhip.
Flagellation, flogging or whipping is the act of beating the human body with special implements such as whips, rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails, the sjambok, the knout, etc. Typically, flogging has been imposed on an unwilling subject as a punishment; however, it can also be submitted to willingly and even done by oneself in sadomasochistic or religious contexts.
In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes. These functions commonly include imprisonment, parole, and probation. A typical correctional institution is a prison. A correctional system, also known as a penal system, thus refers to a network of agencies that administer a jurisdiction's prisons, and community-based programs like parole, and probation boards. This system is part of the larger criminal justice system, which additionally includes police, prosecution and courts. Jurisdictions throughout Canada and the US have ministries or departments, respectively, of corrections, correctional services, or similarly-named agencies.
A borstal was a type of youth detention centre in the United Kingdom, several member states of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland. In India, such a detention centre is known as a borstal school.
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks or hands. Caning on the knuckles or shoulders is much less common. Caning can also be applied to the soles of the feet. The size and flexibility of the cane and the mode of application, as well as the number of the strokes, may vary.
Public humiliation or public shaming is a form of punishment whose main feature is dishonoring or disgracing a person, usually an offender or a prisoner, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of judicially sanctioned punishment in previous centuries, and is still practiced by different means in the modern era.
A switch is a flexible rod which is typically used for corporal punishment. Switching is similar to birching.
The cat o' nine tails, commonly shortened to the cat, is a type of multi-tailed whip or flail. It originated as an implement for physical punishment, particularly in the Royal Navy and British Army, and as a judicial punishment in Britain and some other countries.
The tawse, sometimes formerly spelled taws is an implement used for corporal punishment. It was used for educational discipline, primarily in Scotland, but also in schools in a few English cities e.g. Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Liverpool, Manchester and Walsall.
A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concerns about cities, poverty, immigration, and gender following industrialization, as well as from a shift in penology to reforming instead of punishing the criminal. They were traditionally single-sex institutions that relied on education, vocational training, and removal from the city. Although their use declined throughout the 20th century, their impact can be seen in practices like the United States' continued implementation of parole and the indeterminate sentence.
To run the gauntlet means to take part in a form of corporal punishment in which the party judged guilty is forced to run between two rows of soldiers, who strike out and attack them with sticks or other weapons.
Caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment in Singapore. It can be divided into several contexts: judicial, prison, reformatory, military, school and domestic. These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore. Similar forms of corporal punishment are also used in some other former British colonies, including two of Singapore's neighbouring countries, Malaysia and Brunei.
Community sentence or alternative sentencing or non-custodial sentence is a collective name in criminal justice for all the different ways in which courts can punish a defendant who has been convicted of committing an offense, other than through a custodial sentence or capital punishment (death).
HM Prison Parkhurst is a Category B men's prison in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. Parkhurst prison is one of the two formerly separate prisons that today make up HMP Isle of Wight, the other being Albany.
Strapping refers to the use of a strap as an implement of corporal punishment. It is typically a broad and heavy strip of leather, often with a hard handle, the more flexible 'blade' being applied to the offender.
Caning is used as a form of corporal punishment in Malaysia. It can be divided into at least four contexts: judicial/prison, school, domestic, and sharia/syariah. Of these, the first is largely a legacy of British colonial rule in the territories that are now part of Malaysia, particularly Malaya.
Judicial corporal punishment is the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence imposed on an offender by a court of law, including flagellation, forced amputations, caning, bastinado, birching, or strapping. Legal corporal punishment is forbidden in most countries, but it still is a form of legal punishment practiced according to the legislations of Brunei, Iran, Libya, the Maldives, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Qatar, as well as parts of Indonesia and Nigeria.
Campaigns against corporal punishment aim to reduce or eliminate corporal punishment of minors by instigating legal and cultural changes in the areas where such punishments are practiced. Such campaigns date mostly from the late 20th century, although occasional voices in opposition to corporal punishment existed from ancient times through to the modern era.
Robert Shuster is a British judge who has been a judge on the courts of Tonga, Fiji, and Sierra Leone. Shuster is best known for a 2010 sentence in which he ordered two teenage boys in Tonga to be whipped.
Caning is used as a form of judicial corporal punishment in Brunei. This practice is heavily influenced by Brunei's history as a British protectorate from 1888 to 1984. Similar forms of corporal punishment are also used in two of Brunei's neighbouring countries, Singapore and Malaysia, which are themselves former British colonies.