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Rh advanced that juvenile whipping is a more effective deterrent than other available forms of punishment.

In 1960 the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders reviewed the decision abolishing corporal punishment in the United Kingdom, which had been taken pursuant to the Cadogan Report of 1938. The Council pointed out that "[t]here is no evidence that corporal punishment is an especially effective deterrent either to those who have received it or to others." It therefore arrived at the unanimous conclusion that judicial corporal punishment should not be re-introduced. In S v Motsoesoana Page J, in an exhaustive analysis of the law in relation to corporal punishment, arrived at the conclusion that corporal punishment serves no useful deterrent function, on the contrary, "its effect is likely to be coarsening and degrading rather than rehabilitative." In his judgment he also referred to an article by Professor Kahn on Crime and Punishment 1910–1960:

"Even making the utmost allowances for extraneous factors such as changes in population and in the efficiency of the police force and prosecuting authorities, it seems reasonable to conclude that the deterrent effect of compulsory whipping is nowhere to be seen. If this is so, its retention can only be atributed to some spirit of retribution or revenge."

It may be relevant to observe that three of the applicants in this matter had previous convictions for which they had received strokes; one of them, Witbooi, had in fact received five strokes a mere five months before the present sentence. Some of the co-accused had a variety of previous convictions for which they had received sentences which included strokes. One of them, namely Thomas, had already received a total of sixteen strokes. The previous punishment has obviously failed to act as a sufficient deterrent in these cases.

I am, however, prepared to accept that there is some deterrent value in juvenile whippings. As Milne JP observed in S v Kumalo and Others it could be expected that: