SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Not that long ago, California lawmakers were creating commissions on happiness and self-esteem and penning bills of rights for prisoners. One governor even had his own guru.
Now, the capital is happily abuzz over a Sacramento councilman's proposal that graffiti vandals be subjected to Singapore-style justice: paddlings.
Where have all the love beads gone?
"We've tried holding hands. We've tried psychiatry. We've triedpenalizing parents," said City Councilman Josh Pane, the 35-year-old lobbyist who has floated the proposal. "And none of that has worked."
"We're all tired of these gutless little punks. Next thing we know, they'll put down their spray guns and pick up handguns," he said. "I'm not saying we need to break skin or make them bleed, but society needs justice."
While it's not clear how far the mood of the moment will push corporal punishment into practice, Sacramento is not alone in considering it.
And there is at least some legal precedent to suggest that such a law might be constitutionally enforceable.
Informal polls have indicated widespread local support for paddling juvenile graffiti "taggers," who caused more than $1 million in property damage in Sacramento last year.
An unscientific telephone survey of more than 3,000 callers conducted by KCRA-TV showed 81 percent in support of paddling. Since he disclosed his paddling proposal last Monday, Mr. Pane has been a guest on radio shows originating in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Salt Lake City.
Meanwhile, there seems to be some evidence that the idea might be catching on: A councilman in Cincinnati, Charles Winburn, has talked to Mr. Pane's staff about the possibility of introducing a similar measure in his city.
"We're gathering information at See SPANK, this time," Pam Brown, Mr. Winburn's assistant, said last week. "The councilman is still gathering all the facts."
Friday, St. Louis Alderman Freeman Boseley Sr. proposed public caning as a punishment for graffiti vandals, saying a whipping or two never hurt his own son, Freeman Bosley Jr. -- who is now mayor of St. Louis.
The Board of Aldermen appeared cool toward the idea, effectively burying it by voting to hold a hearing on it, Reuters reported.
Singapore inspiration
Mr. Pane, a Republican who has served on the council for five years, said that his proposal was inspired by the controversial caning of American teen-ager Michael Fay in Singapore earlier this month. Mr. Fay received four lashes with a rattan cane on his bare buttocks after pleading guilty to vandalism. His mandatory sentence of six lashes was reduced after an appeal by President Clinton. Many Americans supported the flogging.
Indeed, the issue generated nearly 1,900 calls to The Sun's own reader response line on a single day at the height of the controversy -- the large majority in support of the caning.
Under the Pane proposal, vandals would be spanked at least six times with a wooden paddle in Sacramento's Plaza Park, one block from the state Capitol.
The paddling proposal -- still in the making -- is unclear about whether the vandal's bottom would be bared and just who would do the spanking.
Not everyone is in favor of turning Sacramento into Paddling Capital U.S.A.
On Thursday, the Sacramento News & Review asked, in an editorial called "Josh The Barbarian": "And then there are the politicians who assault not just our intelligence but civility itself. . . . Should we cut off their wagging tongues before more damage is done?"
Michael Picker, chief of staff to Mayor Joseph Serna, would only say: "Councilman Pane should be spanked, and that's the end of Public support
Dan McGrath, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, called Mr. Pane's proposal a "crackpot idea," but he said the majority of his many callers support public paddling.
"There is such a feeling of helplessness," he said. "People hear about juvenile crime, but they don't see it. [Graffiti] is something they see. People aren't offended by the idea or appalled by it -- they're appalled by the graffiti."
Graffiti vandalism has escalated in this tidy, tree-lined city of 400,000 in the past two years, and in recent months it has swept into some of Sacramento's most affluent, established neighborhoods.
Walking through the state Capitol on Thursday, Mr. Pane was waved down every few steps by supporters of public paddling.
"I'm all for you," shouted one tour guide. "You're just brave enough to say what everyone else is thinking."
"Democrats for Pane!" yelled another woman. Art Croney, a lobbyist for a Christian law-and-order organization, noted: "Even Jesus was flogged."
And Jeane Bolton, a retired jazz singer, said: "This is all my friends and I have been talking about. I'm just tired of America going to hell. At least, this is a beginning. What's cruel and unusual is to allow things to go on as they are."
Mr. Pane hopes to introduce his measure -- to create the penalty of public paddling in Sacramento and to support it statewide -- at a City Council meeting in coming weeks.
If the measure fails to pass -- and even he admits that its fate is uncertain because of "political correctness" -- he vowed to "take it to the people" in the form of a referendum.
Although he still is studying the legal implications, Mr. Pane said that a Supreme Court ruling in 1977 originating in Dade County, Fla., upheld spankings in schools as constitutional.
Irwin Hyman, director of the Philadelphia-based National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives, said that while the 1977 Supreme Court ruling permitted schoolchildren to be paddled, it spares convicted criminals from the rod. He acknowledged, however, that there is debate on that issue among constitutional scholars.
Zsubhed 'Middle Ages' idea
"These people should have lived in the 1700s," said Mr. Hyman, who believes that the paddling of children can cause such psychological damage as post-traumatic stress syndrome.
"By the 1800s, we stopped doing that stuff. This would have been in style in the Middle Ages."
Francisco Lobaco, California's legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union, maintained that public paddling was "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional.
Yet, he acknowledged public support. "Look, California has the toughest criminal justice laws in the country. This touchy-feely stuff doesn't apply to criminal laws, that's for sure. What people don't understand is that this issue is a lot more complicated than beating kids."
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Mickey Conroy, a Republican from Orange County, said he was working on a statewide bill that would allow the courtroom paddling of graffiti vandals.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm thinking a minimum of four whacks."
A retired Marine Corps pilot, Mr. Conroy said that he intends to introduce the bill at a special legislative session on crime in two weeks.
"I was spanked in school," he said. "We won World War II with people who were raised like that. So what's wrong with it?"