Taiwan’s Legislature is scheduled to review an opposition-backed referendum proposal that would allow flogging as a judicial punishment for individuals convicted of certain serious crimes.
The motion, jointly sponsored by all 52 lawmakers of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) on Tuesday, proposes subjecting those convicted of sexual assault, child abuse, major financial fraud, and aggravated “hybrid scam” offenses to flogging.
As a non-native speaker, I had to look up the meaning of “flogging” first. It seems to be similar to caning in Singapore.
Personally, I am unsure whether people will really be dissuaded from committing serious crimes by the risk of someone whipping their butt - the discussions on whether to include drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter in the list of crimes where this is an available punishment could be interesting, though. Right now it seems that the opposition party deliberately left out those crimes - but they did add “major financial fraud”
The KMT seems to have a perpetual h&rd on for Singapore, but without any clear plan for excellent hawker centers, lusting for all the bad, but not the good.
The Wikipedia article about flogging is quite interesting:
Typically, flogging has been imposed on an unwilling subject as a punishment; however, it can also be submitted to willingly and even done by oneself in sadomasochistic or religious contexts
And also:
Officially abolished in most countries, flogging or whipping, including foot whipping in some countries, is still a common punishment in some parts of the world, particularly in countries using Islamic law and in some territories which were former British colonies.
About Singapore:
Caning may be ordered by the courts as a penalty for some categories of crime in Singapore [and], Malaysia, as a legacy of British colonial rule in the 19th Century. Unlike typical floggings sentenced by Sharia courts which are public, these punishments take place behind closed doors, with the accused tied to specially constructed frames and carried out with a doctor in attendance.
Public flogging seems to be practiced only under Sharia law nowadays. Personally, I do not think we should follow Sharia law or align the legal system more closely with Sharia law in Taiwan.
It’s interesting, though, that quite some people outside Islamic countries seem to prefer those principles over the legal systems commonly found in the Western world, though…
I mean, Singapore is only orderly because people were afraid of caning.
Taiwan’s judicial system is whack, with lots of pitifully low fines and punishments. The KMT might be ghouls but the DPP is wrong for trying to copy the Democrats’ soft-on-crime tactics, especially because that part of their policy is meant to increase disorder in American society. I don’t think Taiwan is aiming for that.
Nobody here is afraid of paying a NT10,000 fine for beating up your toddler at daycare. A smack to the ahh that leaves you unable to sit though, that might work.
It also ignores that the biggest factor I see in noncompliance is a failure to actually enforce existing laws, including the supposed laws governing driving.
Was gonna say, you have to catch them doing the bad thing and actually punish them for it as a prerequisite for flogging to be something that can be done.
And after some drunkard hits and kills a mother and her child, flogging and all of 2.5 years in jail probably won’t be much of an incentive either way.
