Ancient Greece and Rome, where flogging was used for punishing criminals, were cultures which applauded the physical prowess of men, valued military might and relied on slaves to do the work for satisfying everyday needs. In the Roman Empire, the ferula - a flat leather strap - was used for minor offences, the scutica - two thongs of leather strap - was employment for more serious offences, the flagellum- three heavy leather thongs knotted at intervals - could be wielded so as to rip lumps of flesh off the offenders's back. Similar punishments have been inflicted traditionally in many other countries throughout the centuries, including France, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, Austria, the USA and Britain. 

Punishment with the "Knut" in Russia

The whip and the cane have been used by slave-drivers and the owners of labour to extract more work from their subjects, since time immemorial. Slaves were being beaten for their increasing incapacity, and were replaced by a seemingly endless supply of fresh labour. Biblical references to the use of corporal punishment are widespread. Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible apparently records 168 faults subject to corporal punishment. In the New Testament, Christ used a scourge, made of small cords bound together, to drive the money-lenders out of the temple. Corporal Punishment continued to play a prominent part in relegious persecution. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, were subjected to widespread religious persecution, from their foundation in the mid-seventeenth century, in many parts of Biritain and, subsequently in the USA. Whipping was a common punishment employed to try to enforce their conformity. In the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, men and women were whipped for many offences all over the world.

The late eighteenth century saw a general reaction against corporal punishment in the most states in Europe. The corporal punishment was abolished in this time with one exception: birching of young offenders and flogging adult offenders with the cat-o'nile-tails were still a part of the penal code in Britain until its repeal in 1948. The last flogging of an offender in the USA was in 1952.

Flogging of prostitutes

The Manual of Correctional Standards (1954) of the American Prison Association only disapproved of 'corporal punishments of the humiliating type' and reported that in several institutions 'women as men are flogged with a heavy leather strap as punishment for both minor and major infractions of the rules. The punishment is usually inflicted by a male employee'. Prison flogging in England and Wales was abolished in 1967. The effectiveness of corporal punishment has been questioned by criminologists and educators, but it is still widely used in the present days. Flogging, for instance, was not banned in Singapore, and is also used in some countries, expecially in those whose legal system based on Islamic Law. And within British and American prisons flogging and beatings are still used, unofficially, to maintain order.