Abstract:Perceived threats to established social order can influence the willingness of those in authority to inflict punishments as well as the severity of those punishments. Our article explores that proposition in the case of summary punishment by flogging in the Royal Navy. In the Royal Navy commanders were given the power to inflict flogging for a host of offenses. Prevailing penal thinking emphasized general deterrence, whereby punishment of a few serious offenders would deter the body of seamen. Eighteenth-centu… Show more
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