ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at question: Is the omission made in scholarly books on physical abuse? It describes the possible link between corporal punishment and physical abuse. Clinical work with abusive parents has shown that much physical abuse starts as an attempt to correct and control through corporal punishment. The clinical evidence, the indirect tests of the escalation theory by Murray A. Straus et al and the only scientific study that directly tested the idea that corporal punishment tends to escalate into physical abuse strongly supported the findings of some studies. The evidence that corporal punishment leads to physical abuse is at least as good as the evidence implicating other presumed causes of physical abuse. Moreover, this evidence has led some respected scholars to conclude spanking is a major cause of physical abuse. By contrast, 95 percent of physical-abuse cases do not involve severe injuries and typically are rooted in corporal punishment rather than psychopathology.
