The Swedish Prohibition of Corporal Punishment: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

In July 1979 the Swedish legal prohibition of corporal punishment came into force. Although research data on the Swedish experience are missing so far, this study aims at offering some preliminary statements on the effectiveness of the Swedish law. They have been obtained by an application of Garbarino 's conceptual model for research on child abuse (1977) and on a secondary analysis of statistical data. The Swedish data show that the soft approach of the Swedish act, aiming at a long-term change of attitudes and avoiding the immediate threat of sanctions, is highly effective because it can link up favorably both with a generally high rejection of corporal punishment in the Swedish population and with a dense network of support systems which can intercept spanking parents. In this way avoidance of corporal punishment is the result of the special societal conditions in Sweden rather than a consequence of the law; but at the same time, the new Swedish law does not preclude the basic problem that the social isolation of the child, rather than corporal punishment in itself, cannot be dealt with exhaustively.