Reply to Murray A. Straus: Readings on "Discipline and Deviance"

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Abstract
This paper offers a critical examination of “Discipline and Deviance: Physical Punishment of Children and Violence and Other Crime in Adulthood” by Murray A. Straus. It first examines Straus' text in terms of its methodological rigor and theoretical contributions to sociology and then compares its scientific, abstract, context-free model of social life with the heterogeneous world of lived realities. Also, the likely social control consequences of the call to “stop physical punishment” are considered. Finally, since Straus references the work of Michel Foucault, insights from Foucault's Discipline and Punish will be used to raise questions about the possible unintended consequences of focusing attention solely on “physical punishments.”