Original Articles
Evaluating the success of sweden’s corporal punishment ban

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(99)00021-6Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective: In 1979, Sweden became the first nation to explicitly prohibit all forms of corporal punishment of children by all caretakers in an effort to: (1) alter public attitudes toward this practice; (2) increase early identification of children at risk for abuse; and (3) promote earlier and more supportive intervention to families. The aim of this study was to examine trends over recent decades in these areas to assess the degree to which these goals have been met.

Method: Primary data were collected from official Swedish sources for the following variables: public support for corporal punishment, reporting of child physical assault, child abuse mortality, prosecution rates, and intervention by the social authorities. Lines of best fit were generated and Cox and Stuart tests for trend were conducted.

Results: Public support for corporal punishment has declined, identification of children at risk has increased, child abuse mortality is rare, prosecution rates have remained steady, and social service intervention has become increasingly supportive and preventive.

Conclusions: The Swedish ban has been highly successful in accomplishing its goals.

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Résumé

French abstract not available at time of publication.

Introduction

IN 1979, SWEDEN became the first nation to abolish all types of corporal punishment of children by all caretakers. This law represents the end of a series of legislative reforms spanning 50 years which were aimed at making the rejection of corporal punishment increasingly explicit in law. While the history of this law has been described in detail elsewhere Durrant 1996, Durrant and Olsen 1997, Newell 1989, Ziegert 1983, Ziegert 1987, it will be summarized here to provide a context for the analyses to follow.

Section snippets

History of the swedish corporal punishment Ban

At the beginning of the twentieth century, severe corporal punishment was common in Sweden (Sverne, 1993). However, concerns about the welfare of children began to be expressed early in the century (see Durrant & Olsen, 1997); the first legislative reform took place in 1928 when corporal punishment was abolished from Swedish secondary schools (gymnasiums).

Continued concern about the levels of violence directed toward children during the ensuing decades led to the repeal in 1957 of the Penal

Purpose

Given the international significance of the Swedish corporal punishment ban, it is surprising that no systematic studies have been conducted to evaluate social changes following its passage. The primary purpose of the present study is to examine such trends in an attempt to determine whether the goals of the Children’s Rights Commission have been met, that is, whether attitudes have shifted, early identification has increased, and intervention has become less intrusive.

Public attitudes toward corporal punishment

Given the evolutionary

Data collection

The research findings presented here are based on data collected by three methods. First, a series of interviews was conducted in Sweden to provide an understanding of the history and implementation of the corporal punishment ban. The individuals interviewed included: (1) the former Chair and a former member of the Children’s Rights Commission which proposed the ban; (2) the Administrative Director of and the Legal Advisor to the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman; (3) two prosecuting attorneys

Public attitudes toward corporal punishment

National opinion polls have been conducted intermittently in Sweden since the mid-1960s by the Swedish Opinion Research Institute (Svenska Institutet för Opinionsundersökningar: SIFO) and SCB to chart trends in support for corporal punishment. As Table 1 indicates, support for corporal punishment has declined markedly over the past 30 years (n = 2, t = 2, p = .0000; range = 11% to 53%, M = 33.4%). While in 1965, 8 years after the repeal of the Criminal Code defence, one-half of the Swedish

Identification: reporting of assaults against children

Data are available on the rate of assaults against children that were reported to the police (crimes) between 1981 and 1996, as well as on the proportion of children who were allegedly assaulted (cases) between 1984 and 1996 BRÅ 1997, SCB 1995a. It should be noted that any reports that are made to the police must be recorded in the official statistics; the police have no discretionary power to not register reported crimes, no matter how minor. Also, these figures include not only alleged

Child physical abuse

Clearly, reporting rates are not equivalent to rates of actual assaults against children. As public awareness of child physical abuse increases, reporting rates will increase accordingly—even if rates of actual abuse remain steady or decline. Therefore, additional measures are needed to determine whether the recent trends in reporting rates reflect increased public awareness of the problem or actual increases in child physical assault.

Although the actual child physical abuse rate can never be

Intervention: criminal prosecution

Prior to 1982, in the case of petty or common assaults committed on private property, legal proceedings could only be initiated by the victim or the victim’s caretaker. (The prosecutor had the power to prosecute in the case of serious assaults.) Thus, the prosecutor could not proceed without the victim’s consent, which had to be explicitly given to the police investigator. Since 1982, the prosecutor has been obliged to prosecute where there is sufficient evidence to proceed.

Numbers of children receiving support and care measures

Two indicators can be examined of the numbers of children receiving support and care measures in a given year: (1) the number of children subject to measures at any time during that year, that is, all those still receiving measures first implemented in previous years plus all those who received measures for the first time during that year; and (2) the number of children who first received measures in that year (“debutants”—these children were not subject to measures within the previous 5 years).

Discussion

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine trends in social variables relevant to the 1979 Swedish corporal punishment ban. The goals of the ban were to: (1) reduce public support for corporal punishment; (2) encourage earlier identification of children at risk for physical abuse; and (3) facilitate earlier, more supportive intervention. Data collected from a range of official sources indicate that these objectives are being met.

Conclusion

It is important to note that direct causal relationships between the passage of the corporal punishment ban and the trends reported here cannot be drawn. Many social changes have occurred in Sweden over the past 25 years, including ongoing legislative reform, demographic shifts, and modifications to social policies. These forces have likely interacted with the attitudinal shifts engendered by the corporal punishment ban to produce the trends reported here. However direct or indirect the route

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Johan Bergqvist, Gunilla Bodin, Ingela Bylon, Åke Edfeldt, Simone Ek, Barbro Hindberg, Anna Hollander, Tora Holst, Gunnel Linde, Agneta Lindelöf, Yvonne Lönn, Bodil Långberg, Inger Malmström, Gregg Olsen, Annika Oster, Solveig Riberdahl, Tor Sverne, and Hanns von Hofer; Anders Broberg, Karin Lundén, Inger Malmström, and Monika Olsson for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Monika Olsson who donated a

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    The data collection for this study was partially supported by the University of Manitoba Research Grants Committee.

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