Apparently there is more than one Fischer out there doing research. I
am still looking for the one that tried to find prisoners that had not
been subject to cp as children.

But while I'm looking you can check out this one. I haven't read his
stuff but he's researching and writing on the subject I've brought up
here befo brain scans and learning under varying conditions.

http://hugse9.harvard.edu/gsedata/Re...vperson_id=335


Gee, the things I turn up. This one's for bobb, who thinks that
childhood sexual abuse isn't damaging:

http://www.darkness2light.org/KnowAb...03_10_02.shtml

Then there is this provocative article in The Natural Child;

http://www.naturalchild.com/research...unishment.html

The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Crime
by Adah Maurer, Ph.D. and James S. Wallerstein (1987)


The last legal flogging of a convicted felon in the United States
occurred in Delaware in 1952. The barbaric practice was made illegal
in that year, but Delaware waited until 1972 to formally remove the
whipping post from the state penitentiary.
Flogging in the Navy for drunken or disorderly conduct was abolished
in 1853. The Marines finally forbade all forms of physical punishment
in 1957 after a drill sergeant led a disciplinary march into a bog
where six young men were drowned. Military instructors now may not
touch the person or the clothing of a recruit and "Any fracture,
concussion, contusion or welt shall be considered prima facia evidence
of excessive force.'' There are no exceptions made on the grounds that
some young men bruise easily.

Slavery and involuntary servitude had always been maintained with the
help of whips, but that disappeared in the United States with the
Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, January 1,
1863.

Spousal abuse used to be termed "reasonable chastisement of wives" and
was presumed necessary to maintain the sanctity and stability of the
family. All states now have laws against such assaults, and law
enforcement and the courts have begun to take seriously, complaints of
spousal battery.

Only Children

Now, in 1987, physical punishment is considered too severe for felons,
murderers, criminals of all kinds and ages, including juvenile
delinquents, too demeaning for soldiers, sailors, servants and
spouses. But it remains legal and acceptable for children who are
innocent of any crime.

The reasoning behind this curious discrepancy has been the belief that
physical punishment will prevent the child from becoming a criminal.
The frequent headlines: "Rising Tide of Juvenile Delinquency" usually
attribute the situation to a decline of the use of corporal punishment
in schools and homes. "Permissiveness," or letting the child do as he
pleases, assumed by some to be the only alternative to hitting, is
pervasively believed to be the primary cause of anti-social behavior.
In the good old days, it is said, "old fashioned discipline" kept
children in line. There was very little crime. Harmony reigned. Or did
it?

The Truth About the "Good Old Days"

There are no reliable statistics on the extent of crime a hundred or a
hundred and fifty years ago. From all reports, however, crime in the
U.S. was extensive, especially violent crime and crimes among the
young. The good citizens of 19th century America were also alarmed.
They looked back to the good old days of simple rural life, before the
growth of the cities. The crowded and crime-ridden Eastern cities were
contrasted unfavorably with the "wide open spaces" of the West -- the
West, that is, of Jesse James and Billy the Kid!

Discipline in the one room schoolhouses was violent. Often the teacher
engaged in a bare knuckle fight with the biggest student as a warning
to the others of what would happen to them if they provoked his wrath.
Horace Mann, the Father of American education, fulminated against the
number of floggings per day, sometimes more than the number of
scholars. Most of our great grandparents were satisfied with a fourth
grade education and eighth grade was the end for all but five percent.
The lawless mountain men of the Old West were recruited from the
14-year olds who high tailed it after one thrashing too many. Bands of
outlaws stole horses, and plagued the defenseless. Public hangings and
Iynchings were commonplace while pickpockets worked the crowds. Only
the militia and the sheriff's posse maintained any semblance of order.

Yet the myth remains that only woodshed discipline in early youth
keeps boys from a life of crime, and that respect for authority is
promoted only by painful procedures that induce fear and resentment of
authority.

What is the truth? Let's take a good hard look at the facts about the
effects of corporal punishment on crime.

After Effects of Physical Punishment

Adrenalin output increases sharply during fear, anger and physical
punishment. When this is prolonged or often repeated, the endocrine
balance fails to return to baseline. The victim becomes easily angered
and prone to poor impulse control and spontaneous violent outbursts.

Educational achievement is affected both directly and indirectly.
Studies of prisoners, delinquents, school drop-outs, college freshmen
and successful professionals are compared in the following composite
report.

Degree of physical punishment
Never Rare Moderate Severe Extreme
Violent inmates
at San Quentin 0% 0% 0% 0% 100%
Juvenile
Delinquents 0% 2% 3% 31% 64%
High School
drop-outs 0% 7% 23% 69% 0%
College
freshmen 2% 23% 40% 33% 0%
Professionals 5% 40% 36% 17% 0%

Taking part in this survey we 200 psychologists who filled out
anonymous questionnaires, 372 college students at the University of
California, Davis and California State University at Fresno, 52 slow
track underachievers at Richmond High School. Delinquents were
interviewed by Dr. Ralph Welsh in Bridgeport, Connecticut and by Dr.
Alan Button in Fresno, California. Prisoner information was by
courtesy of Hobart Banks, M.S.W., counselor of difficult prisoners at
San Quentin Penitentiary, San Quentin, California.

Timing

Do delinquents grow from lack of discipline? Or from too much
discipline? Dr. Alan Button reports, "This, it now appears is the
wrong question. We should be asking about sequence. Parents of
delinquents, all of them, report physical beating in the first ten to
twelve years of the child's life, but rarely thereafter. They "wash
their hands" of the kid because "nothing works." Then the judge,
finding that the boy has no supervision, denounces permissiveness.

The Belt Theory

Dr. Ralph Welsh who has given psychological examinations to over 2,000
delinquents, has developed what he calls. "The Belt Theory of Juvenile
Delinquency." Dr. Welsh tells us:

"The recidivist male delinquent who has never been exposed to the
belt, extension cord or fist at some time in his life is virtually
non-existent. As the severity of corporal punishment in the
delinquent's developmental history increases, so does the probability
that he will engage in a violent act."

Driving Under the Influence

Car crashes caused by drunk driving are increased by a hidden factor.
Bottled up anger, when combined with alcohol is the largest cause of
the highway death toll which comes to 25,000 deaths every year, or one
every 20 minutes. An investigation by Donald C. Pelz of the Institute
for Social Research at the University of Michigan in 1973 led to his
finding that: "For the young male, anger toward the adult world is
likely to find vent in dangerous driving ... Hostility tends to
multiply with their attitude toward the educational system ... Those
who had rejected the school system ... are likely to reject the
highway system. " In fact he concluded that abiding anger was even
more dangerous than drinking per se, but that the combination was the
most deadly. The insult to high school boys of an embarrassing
paddling raises the adrenaline level, which if repeated often enough
stays high all the time. They are the timebombs whose battlefield
casualties litter the roads and intersections of our country.

Spanking the Baby

The effect begins early. Babies just over a year were observed with
their mothers at a clinic at the University of Houston. As reported in
Psychology Today interviews about the methods of discipline they used
revealed that the babies who where punished physically were the least
likely to obey instructions not to touch breakables. Even more
importantly, seven months later the punished children lagged behind
the others in developmental tests.

The Real Reason

Why, with all this evidence about the destructive effects of
physically painful punishments, do so many people continue to believe
that the only alternative to hitting children is to negligently allow
them to do as they please? And that what they please is always
delinquent, if not outright criminal?

At the National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment at Temple
University in Philadelphia a large research project inquired of adults
the reasons for their beliefs, both pro- and anti-paddle. Most thought
they had arrived at their belief logically, but in truth, the real
determinant was their own childhood history. Those who had been
spanked, paddled, switched, whipped etc. tended overwhelmingly to
believed in it. Those who had not been hit, and had attended
non-hitting schools, did not believe hitting did any good or were
shocked and dismayed at the very idea. The action-language of our
childhood overrides logic more often than not. Minds and habits do
change, however, but it takes thoughtful assessment and considerable
motivation even by people of goodwill.

Institutional Abuse

Whether the beatings were at the hands of the natural parents, or
others who stood in for them seems to make little difference except
that institutional punishments lack even intermittent moments of pride
and belonging, that might in some cases mitigate slightly the worst
effects. Charles Manson, the child of a 15 year old single mother had
his first contact with police when he was 7 and spent the rest of his
life in a series of foster homes, reform schools and prisons. He could
have survived the rejection of his mother, he says, if reform school
of officials hadn't been institutionally cruel, whipping, beating and
raping him, and letting other inmates do the same.

A survey of 3,900 people in Houston as to what effect school corporal
punishment had on their lives found that 76 percent of them said the
effects had been negative and that they continued to resent what
happened to them. That leaves about a fourth of them who were able to
shrug it off and a mere handful who felt grateful for the timely
punishment that "saved me from a life of crime." Thus, the one who
testifies that "I was paddled when I was a kid and I turned out okay,"
must be labelled a survivor and congratulated on the strength of
character that enabled him to make a life in spite of early
mistreatment. Phychologist Robert Fathman, has offered this apt
analogy: "Many people grew up in homes that had outhouses and they
turned out okay. But do outhouses get the credit?"

I guess I'll never find the old Fischer professor I was looking for.
He was very old when I ran across his attempt to study prisons back in
the mid 70's and may be deceased by now, and or not active.

If I run across him I'll let you know.

Kane