Another problem that we have now that we didn't have 50 years ago is a lack of manufacturing industry to provide apprenticeships and employment for those who are not academically inclined.

You may have put your finger on a major factor.

Combine that with the evolving PC attitude that prohibits a good spanking and you have a generation of young urbanites that are not only aimless but have no sense of consequences.

I don't think that criminal assault solves any problems at all. The only reason that a 'good spanking' used to be acceptable was that the spankers were seen to be of higher moral rectitude than the spankees.

I'd be quite amenable to a 'good spanking' if the spanking was administered to all who transgressed but I fear that a 'good spanking' was only ever used to put the underclass in their place.

I suppose what I'm getting at is having been a bit of a tearaway in my youth and having experienced corporal punishment...from the age of 8 or 9 until it was banned when I started High school I never had any respect for the people who administered this. To me it was just something to be endured and despised.

I agree, but I am not sure that it does not help to keep youngsters somewhat in line until they figure out that there are even worse consequences for bad behavior as they get older.

Another problem that we have now that we didn't have 50 years ago is a lack of manufacturing industry to provide apprenticeships and employment for those who are not academically inclined.

You may have put your finger on a major factor.

Combine that with the evolving PC attitude that prohibits a good spanking and you have a generation of young urbanites that are not only aimless but have no sense of consequences.

I don't think that criminal assault solves any problems at all. The only reason that a 'good spanking' used to be acceptable was that the spankers were seen to be of higher moral rectitude than the spankees.

I'd be quite amenable to a 'good spanking' if the spanking was administered to all who transgressed but I fear that a 'good spanking' was only ever used to put the underclass in their place.

It's only criminal assault because we have deemed it so. I'm talking about discipline of children...nothing about underclass adults and the birch.....I received "six of the best" a few times....and in school in Fiji a whole lot worse than a simple caning from teachers, and one sound hiding from Dad......didn't do me any harm that didn't scab over and heal, and certainly ensured I did not transgress (much) in later life.

I din't think the sort of caning many of us (including myself) received at school did much harm; it was over quicker than the alternative punishments, and we didn't worry about it much. The right to cane could be abused, though.

Obviously, as Smokie says, individual guidance and counselling is better than any universal measure, but it just isn't possible for the numbers of people we are talking about.

Many of you seem to think a revised form of National Service would be like boot camp. But boot camp is for people who have already offended, and being sent on it is already a kind of punishment. If it applied to everybody, as NS did, it would just become one of those things in life which had to be got over with.

The possibility of training people for jobs is a difficult one. As Endure (I think) said, there are fewer and fewer industrial apprenticeships; and many jobs are too technically advanced to be suitable in this context.