Caning Singapore Style

Singapore holds an enviable position as one of the safest and cleanest cities in the world. That’s because would-be graffiti artists and sundry antisocial varieties have decided, very sensibly, that the degree of pleasure experienced whilst destroying their local environment compares very unfavourably with the degree of pain experienced whilst being caned for the offence.

Caning, Singapore style, is by way of a long half-inch thick rattan cane soaked in water enthusiastically applied to the naked buttocks of the recipient by a beefy public official. One lash will wipe the smirk from any rebel without a cause. A couple more can cause recipients to go into shock and leave them permanently scarred.

The government believes that tough measures are justified by the country’s low crime statistics. Their Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the criminal justice system, says that tough laws kept Singapore “orderly and relatively crime free.”

March 1994 – Singapore. Michael Fay, an American teenager, admitted to having engaged in a ten-day spree of vandalising cars with spray paint and eggs. District Judge F. G. Remedios said that his acts “could not be condoned as a display of growing pains and schoolboy pranks.” He sentenced Fay to be flogged six times with a rattan cane, ordered him to pay a fine of $2,230 and jailed him for four months. The U.S. government filed a strong protest with the Singapore authorities over the sentence. His mother let out a wail in court when the sentence was announced and burst into tears. Two-dozen American teenagers in the court cried and hugged each other.