When I arrived in North Carolina more than a decade ago to teach and practice law, it was a bit of a culture shock for someone who had rarely been south of the Mason- Dixon line. In juvenile delinquency court, judges would tell tales from their own childhoods that sounded almost too clichéd to be true: mamas beating their misbehaving children with a switch that the child had to cut himself, schools located miles from home where the only option was to walk, and teachers paddling students as a regular form of classroom discipline.
Because I practice in counties where the local school boards do not allow corporal punishment, I have not encountered it firsthand, but a recent report by NC Child, a nonprofit advocacy group, reminded me that there are about 15 districts (of the state’s 115) where teachers and administrators are permitted to hit students.
North Carolina’s laws on corporal punishment allow “reasonable force” to be used, which is defined as that which does not cause an injury requiring medical attention beyond simple first aid. This means that schools are the only place in North Carolina where an adult can strike an unrelated child and not be criminally prosecuted for assault.
[For more of this story, written by Tamar Birckhead, go to http://youthtoday.org/2016/05/...-our-schoolchildren/]
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