Quote Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr View Post
That was a terrible and pointless article. It does nothing to control for the countless other factors that would influence the figures it talks about. Take this for example:

"There are regions of this country (particularly the Evangelical south) where the practice of corporal punishment is culturally more accepted. Those are the same places where rates of crime, gun ownership and incarceration are highest, the Economist notes."

I think that these problems are more likely due to higher levels of poverty, unemployment, racial segregation etc than they are too much spanking.
In Gorbachev's USSR an attempt was made to curb alcohol abuse. One of the measures taken was prohibiting to show movies where characters drink. They thought that people who see drinking on the screen are likely to drink in real life.
Evidently the same logics was applied in the case discussed.