Nash County commissioners think it unwise to abolish whipping of convicts altogether. “We believe,” they say in a statement, “that it should be held over the prisoners as they might be prone to lie down and refuse to work if they knew absolutely that there was no whipping coming to them. We believe the whip should be held over them as a threat just as a father holds the switch over his children to make them behave.”
No father ever made his children behave long at a time merely by threatening to whip. Children soon find out the “threats” that mean something and those that mean nothing. The whip held up as a threat must be used now and then to give the threat efficacy.
The way to abolish whipping is to abolish it. Superintendent J.T. Gunter of Lee county, has shown that it can be done. It is (words obscured) down and refuses to work there is solitary confinement and bread and water, and other ways which we have. No doubt prison experts can suggest. If the whip is invoked as a threat, it will be used. If it is used, there is danger of inhumane treatment and in any case there is the brutalization effect which is always to be avoided and feared.
From The Independent, Elizabeth City, Friday, July 13, 1923
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