Legality of corporal punishment by nation

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Corporal punishment or physical punishment is a punishment intended to cause physical pain on a person. It is most often practised on minors, especially in home and school settings. Common methods include cudgelling and flogging. It has also historically been used on adults, particularly on prisoners and enslaved people. Other common methods include flagellation and caning.

Official punishment for crime by inflicting pain or injury, including flogging, branding and even mutilation, was once widespread in the Atteran and Babkhan empires of antiquity. However, with the collapse of Shireroth, the last great empire built upon slavery, such punishments were increasingly viewed as inhumane and inefficient. By the late 17th century AN, corporal punishment had been eliminated from the legal systems of most developed countries.


Summary of legality by nation

Nation Domestic Educational Judicial Notes
Aerla Aerla No No No Article 5.3 of the Aerlan Constitution states: "The use of cruel or unusual punishment that involves physical cruel injury and/or bodily mutilation of persons is outlawed under the common law."
Batavia Batavia No No No
Çakaristan Çakaristan No No No
Constancia Constancia Yes Yes Yes
Elwynn Elwynn Yes A writ of cudgelling may be issued, under Article 8, Section 3, of the Constitution, by an appropriate agency for any act that may be reasonably accomplished through the application of cudgels provided that it is discernibly for the benefit of public order and discipline and is to the benefit of the greater portion of the citizens of the Republic. A valid writ must receive endorsement from the Court of the Prince and be executed within twelve days of issuance.
Kalgachia Kalgachia Yes Yes Yes
  • Although nowadays superseded by primarily psychological forms of torment following the damning Toastypops Report of 187 AL, the use of corporal punishment for trivial infractions of camp discipline was an integral part of the Urchagin, the process of late-childhood hardening and conditioning which completes the amygdalo-pituitary foundation for Kalgachi citizens' subsequent cultivation.
  • In the domestic realm, the accumulated corpus of Kalgachi case law provides an approximate boundary of "reasonable chastisement" which is used by provincial tribunals of the state church to rule upon suspected cases of abuse; among wider Kalgachi society, domestic corporal punishment as a regular practice is generally limited to families of pre-Minarborian heritage, namely the Laqi and the Bergburgers (physical aggression against juvenile Deep Singers equipped with fangs and venom sacs is considered singularly unwise).
  • Although Kalgachia's decentralised judicial system allows for a wide variety of sentences, these rarely feature corporal punishment due to the prevailing Ketherist doctrine which considers ritualised inducement of physical pain and anguish to be the principal nectar sustaining the malevolent archonic host in their quest to enslave the universe. Parish police detachments do however enjoy the authority to administer summary physical punishments to maintain public order and pacify known recidivists, most frequently with cossack whips although lead-tipped cudgels of the type used in Elwynn and the UGB have become increasingly popular.
Meckelnburgh Meckelnburgh No No No
Mercury Mercury No No No
Ralgon Ralgon No (see notes) No Yes The use of corporal punishment by teachers is seen to be a grave abuse of authority in itself. Ralgons strongly frown upon the use of pain for parents and teachers for the sake of pain itself. Instead, light punishments for children (and those sentenced to community service) includes labor and exercise until the child is rendered deeply uncomfortable is the norm. The Ralgons want children growing up to feel loyal to their family and to the state, as well as avoid the cost of rehabilitating a damaged child. The Ralgons also follow the ancient saying, "Either they grow up smart, or they grow up strong. Regardless of the result, they will grow up useful to both gods and country."

Corporal punishment differs from Ralgons who serve in the military in any capacity. In the military, recruits are punished (according to offense) with compulsory exercise, extra duty, reduction in rank, or even (temporary) stripping of citizenship and sent to the Auxiliaries (an already painful prospect). Only in the Auxiliaries is flogging used as a default punishment (and never for rare citizens in this branch of the army), since the Auxiliaries usually consist almost entirely of prisoners who chose military service to redeem their honor (and possibly citizenship) than prison time followed by transportation, or personnel temporarily sent there from the Legion as punishment.

For more severe offenses that would otherwise lead to transportation, prison time is used, and it is there that flogging is used to preserve order. In cases of death, harsh corporal punishment is sometimes used weaken a prisoner who is sentenced to some form of death ad gladium or with exile (unarmed) to the Swamp. Other especially painful death sentences are used in which the authorities deem a violent non-citizen convict too dangerous to be kept alive. Painless death sentences are used only when a higher power commutes the sentence from a long/life prison sentence or painful death.

Sanama Sanama No No No All forms of physical punishment are banned under the Third Republic constitution.
Senya Senya No No No Corporate punishment is widely seen as inhumane and an ineffective method of punishment.
Unified Governorates Unified Governorates Yes Yes Yes
  • Traditional Benacian societies consider the sovereignty of the patriarch over his household to be as absolute as the one-time sovereignty of the Kaiser over his former empire and of the Gods over their creation. This extends to conferring upon a father the power of life and death over his dependants, particularly including servants and children, and the obligation to subject them all to ferocious and ceaseless discipline.
  • Enthusiastic adherents of the educational policies of Ilessa Z. Aerit, the Black Legions consider corporal punishment to be an essential component of conditioning the young to understand and accept the hierarchies of obedience which will define their lives
  • The use of corporal punishment is an established feature of the criminal justice system in the Unified Governorates which is influenced by the inquisitorial system of Shireroth and the cudgel-orientated policing model pioneered by Elwynn. Since 1673 all sentences for all but the most serious or political of crimes have been suspended in favour of enforced tours of duty with the Biological Remediation Service, combating the engineered-biota inflicted upon the natural environment by the enemies of humanity, where physical chastisement - usually flogging - is a prerequisite deterrent against attempts to flee.
  • More generally, the ideology of Nationalist-Humanism holds that a society that lacks the capacity for cruelty will soon lose all vigour and swiftly become subject to external forces out of an aversion to conflict and fear of privation. As such corporal punishment is considered a public good, even if it perpetuates across generations psychological pathologies that might otherwise be considered antisocial, as it ensures that there will always remain to hand a sufficient cadre of those who understand the utility and necessity of violence.