I suffered corporal punishment as a child. I am not, and have never been, a delinquent. In my experience, the main reasons for dealing out CP to children are incompetence and sadism. I vividly remember my primary school headmaster caning two boys in front of the assembled infant school for spitting. The man was an inadequate. He was flexing his muscles and getting his kicks by physically abusing children, and hiding behind the then lax restrictions on such things. Teachers who strike unruly children in self-defence are one thing: injury as punishment only teaches the subjects to injure others.