Kids acting up? Not getting the grades they should be or listening to you when it's time to wash the dishes? Well, if you live in Snellville, Georgia, you don't have to punish them with time outs or idle threats of giving them to the bad man who will sell all of their organs for below-market value. You can send them…

It's not well-advertised, but if a parent wants to disciple their child in Florida (at least Okeechobee but probably all over) with a spanking, they can have a police officer come and watch to make sure that it's on the up-and-up and no one's doing anything illegal.

Dakota Nafzinger, age eight, was born with bilateral anopthalmia, which means he has no eyes. Normally he uses a cane to get around, but on Monday of this week, a staff member at Gracemor Elementary School in Kansas City took his cane away on the bus as punishment and replaced it with a pool noodle.

Today, the New York Times ran a crucial piece about school-age girls and the massive disciplinary imbalances that effectively segregate them, both by race and also by skin color. Tanzina Vega's report begins with the case of Mikia, a 12-year-old in Georgia who was caught vandalizing a school bathroom with a friend.…

You know how when you're late for something and there's a school bus unloading children in your way, you sometimes just have to be all, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna drive on the sidewalk from now on! Problem solved!"? No? Well, Sheena Hardin of Cleveland does. In fact, she was caught on camera bobbing and weaving and now…

On Monday, Betty Smithey, the longest-serving female inmate in the U.S., was set free after spending 49 years in prison for the murder of a 15-month-old Phoenix girl in 1963. The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency determined that Smithey was no longer a violent or troubled woman, granted her an absolute discharge by…

On Friday, Chinese officials released a woman who'd been sent to a labor camp because she'd campaigned ardently for harsher sentences to be meted out to the seven young men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her then-11-year-old daughter in 2006.

The St. Kitts and Nevis team described sprinter Kim Collins as a "national hero" even as the team was expelling him on Saturday for missing training sessions. Responding to the punishment, Collins, the world champion back in 2003, said he was kicked off the team for leaving the Olympic Village to visit his wife, and…

In a sort of surprising twist to the Pussy Riot saga, Russian President, shirtless outdoorsman, and Siberian tiger whisperer Vladimir Putin said that Pussy Riot's bandmembers shouldn't "be judged so harshly" for their impromptu punk rock performance in February on the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Church. Putin …

Kids usually don't think before they steal, but you can bet 13-year-old Natia Wade never thought she'd end up standing on the corner of a busy intersection holding up a hand-written sign that read, "I steal from my family." Wade, who lives in Memphis, ended up there after she racked up a record of taking things—mostly…

Spanking has long been part of the American parenting repertoire, and it's been the source of plenty of controversy. Any kid that's ever been spanked knows it's scary as hell, and, for that reason alone, plenty of parents refuse to do it. But there are still many that swear by it as an effective disciplinary tool.…

Parents of young men who have been busted and sent to jail for having sex with underage girlfriends are fighting anti-sex offender laws on their sons' behalf. Sex offender registry standards are unfair, they say, and enforcing statutory rape laws when the two people involved are just two kids in love is unjust. Is it?

A surprisingly high percentage of child sexual abuse is actually perpetrated by other children. But the systems in place for prosecuting adult pedophiles may not be appropriate for child offenders.

Screaming at your toddler for finger-painting your computer won't deter future acts of deviant self-expression, but it will probably help her tell a more convincing lie in ten years about the missing vodka in your liquor cabinet.

Sure, babies may seem cuddly and forgiving. But a new study shows these little disciplinarians delight in the punishment of those they see as evildoers.

Sweden became the first country to outlaw physical punishment of children in 1979. Now, the first generation of Swedish young adults to have been raised in a spanking-free society is in its thirties. Contrary to what your cantankerous, defensive grandpa might suggest, the entire country hasn't turned into a bunch of…

Residents of Brooklyn neighborhoods Park Slope and Sunset Park are growing increasingly concerned about the way the NYPD has been handling a recent string of sexual assaults at the hands of what appears to be a serial attacker.

Jessica Beagley, the mom who videotaped herself pouring hot sauce in her son's mouth and giving him cold showers to get on Dr. Phil's "Angry Moms" episode, has been convicted of misdemeanor child abuse. Beagley and her husband, Anchorage police officer Gary Beagley, showed no emotion when the verdict was announced.…

A new study shows that a whopping 60% of Texas students are suspended at some point in middle or high school — and those getting the harshest suspensions are students of color.