Would smacking children have stopped the London riots?

THE LABOUR MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, has suggested that parents should be given more freedom to smack their children after people in his constituency blamed last summer's riots on not being able to discipline their children. Many, he said, were afraid of smacking their children, in case they were taken away by child welfare authorities. Some commentators agree that the current smacking law, introduced by Labour in 2004, makes it difficult for parents to set boundaries. Others argue that smacking only teaches children bad behaviour, and should never be condoned by the law.
 
Better than jail

Thank you, David Lammy, blogged Christina Odone for The Daily Telegraph, for trying to deliver parents from a crazy scenario where "they are scared of laying a hand on, or even shouting at, the little wretches, lest the child‑snatchers come".
 
Parents, particularly working-class parents, who can't pay for shrinks or get their GPs to prescribe Ritalin, can feel they have little authority over their children. "A good spanking may not work miracles; but it is less harmful than pills and cheaper than jail."
 
What nonsense

What a load of nonsense, Laurie Penny told a Channel 4 News debate. The assertion that the riots were somehow the result of a failure of parenting is a "massive rewriting of history". It ignores the present breakdown of society and growing civil unrest and presumes that "if we had only beaten our children a little bit harder they would have stayed quietly at home while young men in their community were shot".   
 
Law should be clearer

London Mayor Boris Johnson told BBC 5's Pienaar's Politics that parents should be given a clear statement from the government explaining that when it comes to smacking children "the benefit of the doubt should be given to parents". A lot of parents "feel confused about what exactly they can do and can't do".  
 
Smacking isn't actually banned...

The law is clear, says Zoe Williams in The Guardian. It doesn't ban all smacking - only a smack that is hard enough to leave a red mark. Children might not have many rights, but they do have some. You can't kill your kid if he is naughty, or break his bones. So the law obviously has a role interpolating itself somewhere between the parent and the child, "and if it's not at the stage beyond reddening the skin, where on earth is it?"

... But it's wrong

Hitting children is wrong and the law should say so, says John Rentoul in The Independent. "The law has an important secondary role, of declaring that some things are unacceptable, even if it is not practical to enforce such norms."

Smacking may teach children that certain behaviour is unacceptable, says Dreda Say Mitchell in The Guardian. But it also teaches "that violence and threats are an effective way of getting the response you want". ·