Condemnation of baby-killer Anton Bruce, who fatally beat his 30-month-old step-daughter, has naturally been universal. But we wonder how many persons condemning this act would also condemn corporal punishment for children in general?

Bruce’s defence was that he was punishing infant Kareema Roberts and her two siblings for stealing money. He had decided to give the older children ten lashes each with a whip and Kareema five, since she was younger. But, because his arm was tired when her turn came, he hit her with his fist instead. Kareema died of internal injuries.

Now surveys have consistently shown that the majority of people in Trinidad and Tobago support corporal punishment. The typical rationalisations given to justify beating children are that such punishment should never be done in anger; that licks is the most effective way of instilling discipline; that not beating children facilitates criminal behaviour when they get older and, most commonly, the statement ’I get beat when I was small and I turn out alright.’

None of these arguments is convincing. First, it is difficult, if not impossible, for human beings to do violence without being motivated by anger. Bruce himself seems to have started off intending to punish the children methodically, but then rage overcame him. Yet his very belief that it was justified to whip a two-year-old was itself informed by attitudes in the wider society.

Then there’s the belief that licks and discipline go together. Yet, if discipline is measured by self-control and commitment and efficiency, then the most disciplined societies in the world are those where corporal punishment for children is not widespread, and the least disciplined are those where children are regularly beaten. The same is true for crime rates, and it is a virtual certainty that every inmate in our prisons today was beaten as a child. And, finally, if the majority of people are so worthy despite being beaten as children, then why does Trinidad and Tobago have such high levels of violence?

The fact is, crime and violence do not exist separately from the wider mores of the society. The murderers in our midst are not anomalies, they are representatives. Studies show that countries with high rates of alcoholism, for example, are always ones where social drinking is widespread. It is likely that violence functions in a similar manner: killers are only the most extreme products of a society in which aggression is a norm. And nowhere is such aggression more widespread than in the support for violence toward the most vulnerable members of our society-children.

That being so, stopping corporal punishment will be a good first step to stopping violence in general. It may even save some infants’ lives.