A senator says a bill to introduce caning as a form of punishment will reduce crime on Guam.
Formally introduced to Guam's Senate on January 27, the bill proposes judicial caning as punishment for inmates convicted of violent crimes.
The bill's father, Senator Dwayne San Nicolas, said caning will curb Guam's growing crime rate.
"Our island has been starting to go wayward and we're experiencing a lot of crime, especially violent crimes," said San Nicolas, a Democrat.
"We've got everybody on Guam talking about the crime issue and just two weeks ago someone broke into an elderly gentleman's home and beat him with a hammer. You know, that's a horrible thing - how do you administer justice in that case?
Dwayne San Nicolas Photo: Dwayne San Nicolas
"We need to be tough, we need to be courageous, we need to be brave and we cannot keep coddling our criminals. Here on Guam, its seems there's a lawlessness out there and we're being laughed at by the criminals because we have no courage to be tough and be strong."
Senator San Nicolas's bill proposes to apply judicial caning to perpetrators of violent crimes with a maximum of 24 strikes. He argues it's a stronger deterrent to criminals than longer prison sentences - a standard of the United States prison system.
"They have a lot of time on their hands in our criminal system, especially in our incarceration where there is no real form of rehabilitation. You can put somebody in jail and let him linger there, but he really isn't learning his lesson," said San Nicolas.
There is no survey on the amount of support that San Nicolas has for his bill, but public criticism from Guam's legal community suggests the bill face an uphill battle. Even Guam's Attorney General Douglas Moylan, dubbed "the toughest AG on crime", expressed concern.
Moylan told the Guam Daily Post that "At first blush, I cringe a little bit because we shouldn't be beating people up …I don't think that's going to pass the scrutiny required of a corporal punishment scenario."
'It will make people think twice'
Dwayne San Nicolas's disillusionment with the current US style justice system however is not an unpopular sentiment. According to various surveys, America's prison system is hugely unpopular, and widely condemned for hardening criminals.
According to a report released this year by the National Institute of Justice, almost 44 percent of criminals released return before the first year out of prison.
"I think if we exact some kind of physical punishment, it will help deter crime and people will think twice before they do something. It'll also help cut down on our prison population as we see it right now. I think we're about double the capacity of our allocated jail space," said San Nicolas.
"I still don't have any good suggestions on how we can better prevent crimes. We constantly give criminals longer prison sentences. But if that works then why does our crime rates continue to rise?"
Advocates of caning in Guam cite Singapore as an example for the punishment's effectiveness. Caning is legal in Singapore which incidentally also happens to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world.
"They still do caning and it's just an amazing place. An economic hub that went from a from a third world to a first world," said San Nicolas.
"They obviously see a value in it, and 5.4 million Singaporeans can't be wrong. Corporal punishment is a necessary tool to administer justice and to keep society from crumbling. It says it in the Bible as well, you know, spare the rod spoil the child,
"I promised during my campaign that I would address the crime issue. I searched pretty much the whole world looking for what we could use here on Guam and I found the answer in Singapore, corporal punishment for criminals."
Another fact cited for advocating the use of caning has been the already legal status of corporal punishment in many parts of the United States. Nineteen states authorise caning to discipline students.
"If corporal punishment is permissible in schools to rectify the wrongs of a school aged child, I'm pretty sure it will be good enough to rectify an adult found guilty of a of a heinous crime," said San Nicolas.
"I'm trying to have the people here understand that I'm not out to be vicious or vindictive. What I want to do is give the judicial judiciary another tool to keep law and order and peace, and bring back respect to our island. I'm getting a lot of good responses.
"I think as Pacific Islanders, we understand the importance of corporal punishment on our kids because that's how we were able to keep our families tight, you know, based on respect and, and that's and when we when we go away from what we normally do, you know, our society will notice the effects and that's why we're, we're here with with all this crime is because we we've kind of like given up a little bit of who we are."