Why Florida laws around corporal punishment are 'intentionally vague'

ORLANDO, Fla. - FOX 35 News is learning more about State Attorney Andrew Bain’s decision not to prosecute a pastor whom several parents accused of child abuse.

Parents told Orlando Police a senior pastor used a belt to lash 16 kids – each of them on their hip, legs, and back. Although none of the public school districts in Central Florida allow corporal punishment, the Alpha Learning Academy is a private school, and Florida is one of 19 states where corporal punishment is legal.

Deandre Boykin, who says her son was one of the children who was hit, said she and the other parents weren’t informed their kids would be disciplined this way. 

"My kids have no rights, that they are allowed to come and just whoop my child, and he has no grounds. We as parents have no rights," said Boykin.

In his decision not to press charges, State Attorney Bain explained the current version of the Academy’s handbook doesn’t mention corporal punishment, but older versions do. So he says the pastor may have thought he had the authority to strike the kids.

The State Attorney also says he couldn’t prosecute because he couldn’t prove the pastor intended to cause injury. However, the legal definitions for battery and child abuse don’t actually provide any guidance as to what constitutes harm or significant impairment or even what’s considered reasonable.

MORE HEADLINES:

• Melbourne to discuss $45m worth of upgrades to railroad crossings
• Orlando's Exploria Stadium, home of Orlando City soccer, now has a new name
• Artificial intelligence used to count manatee clusters in real time: FAU researchers

Sarah Font is an associate professor of sociology. 

"States are generally wary of having these really clear dividing lines that might either permit behavior that they would like to be able to regulate or punishing behavior that they don't want to be punishing," she told FOX 35.

She co-authored a research paper that explains that the language for these laws is intentionally vague.

"There's a lot of room for interpretation," said Font. "Both from the perspective of a person who might be engaging a corporal punishment, and then also from the side of child protection or law enforcement tasked with investigating that."

Florida Statute 39.1 specifies that abuse means "any willful act or threatened act that results in any physical, mental, or sexual abuse, injury, or harm that causes or is likely to cause the child’s physical, mental, or emotional health to be significantly impaired."

The statute elaborates, "Corporal discipline of a child by a parent or legal custodian for disciplinary purposes does not in itself constitute abuse when it does not result in harm to the child."

Florida Statute 784.03 explains that battery occurs when a person intentionally touches or strikes another person against their will and intentionally causes bodily harm.

Finally, Florida Statute 1003.01 states corporal punishment means "the moderate use of physical force or physical contact by a teacher or principal as may be necessary to maintain discipline or to enforce school rule."

Font says she believes there are good reasons for laws being written vaguely on purpose.

"It's really hard to write like sort of an if this and then this for every possible scenario that might arise."

There’s a bill working its way through the Florida House that would further limit corporal punishment in schools. That bill just had its first reading in the House last week.

This is a discussion being held at the nationwide level too.

The US Secretary of Education has asked school districts to eliminate corporal punishment.

The U.S. Department of Education says Black students are more than twice as likely as white students to receive corporal punishment; boys are four times more likely than girls to be disciplined in that way; and students with disabilities are over-represented in receipt of corporal punishment.

And just last week, there was a case working its way up that could’ve proved a challenge to the 1977 decision that allowed corporal punishment in schools. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case.