[roryirvine]

Corporal punishment was banned in the UK in 1998.

In the 28 years since, there have been 175 terrorist-related deaths. Compare that with the 28 years before, when there were 3,262 terrorist-related deaths.

[cedws]

The point of my reply was not that caning equals less terrorism. It was that lenience kills. Your cherry picked numbers also don't really demonstrate anything, much of that 3,262 figure was due to the Troubles.

[roryirvine]

Those are the numbers that relate to your chosen framing.

But even if you excluded the Troubles or anything even remotely related to them, you'd still end up more than three times as many deaths before as after.

[ivanb]

Most if not all the terrorist-related deaths are attributed to The Troubles that ended in - you guessed that - 1998. It is not possible to attribute the deaths or lack thereof to corporal punishment.

[roryirvine]

Well, yes, obviously.

But it's even less possible to claim that the lack of severe punishment has increased terrorism, as cedws was saying.

Even when you exclude NI, terrorism is lower now than in the past yet punishments have not become notably more severe.

[rvnx]

How many terrorists had to be killed upfront in their country to reach that result ?

[roryirvine]

None.

Violence was, at best, counterproductive for all parties involved. It often led to further tit-for-tat killings and, more generally, piled up more layers of grievance that hardened attitudes and formed a barrier to de-escalation.

The cycle was instead brought to an end by a decade of trust-building and painful negotiation. Violence didn't help, and wasn't part of the solution.