Well when I was in one of my many schools I went to they had paddling. The biggest effect it had on the kid who was paddled was the embarrassment.
That and the anticipation it was always a few days after the event so you got time to stew about it
.
True!
And that is the chief value of paddling.
When I first started teaching, paddling was still in effect. I hated doing it—the old “this hurts me more than it hurts you” has a lot of truth to it. Anyway, the procedure was we had to have another teacher to witness the punishment. We made sure that all classroom doors nearby were open. This way the swats benefited the kids hearing them as well as the one being punished.
The problem was that some teachers were “paddle happy”. They seemed to need to administer swats on a nearly daily basis. Parents started to say “don’t swat my kid”. As the do-not-swat list grew larger, the punishment fell out of use. Most of the kids not on the list were the kind who would never get swats in the first place. Finally the school board said that teacher could no longer paddle—only the principal. Frankly, I didn’t miss not paddling.
As to minorities getting a “disproportionate” share of corporal punishment, well, everyone knows that the main reason for that is that they are breaking important rules at a disproportionate rate, but you’re not supposed to say/notice that.