Fox News contributor slammed over ‘wild’ solution to crime in Washington D.C.

After US president Donald Trump announced the federalisation of the Washington D.C. police force this week and deployed the National Guard to address “out of control” crime in the capital (despite data showing violent crime has been declining since 2023), commentators have been discussing the situation in the city and how to properly address it.

And in the eyes of Jack Brewer, the former NFL player turned non-profit founder and Trump backer, he made the case on Fox News on Wednesday night that schools should return to striking kids on the backside with paddles – also known as corporal punishment.

When presenter Rachel Campos-Duffy asked him how parents should be held accountable, Brewer replied: “It starts locally. First off, in the schools - the schools have to start by disciplining kids.

“They took the paddle out of school, and everything collapsed. We’ve got to get the paddle back, Rachel.

“Listen, corporal punishment is the only way when you have a knucklehead kid, that’s willing to rob you and me at gunpoint, with a car full of kids or anyone else.”

The proposition has since seen social media users accuse Brewer of sounding “so ridiculous”:

Another Twitter/X account claimed it “exemplifies” the nature of the Trump administration in the sense that it “[wants] to beat people into submitting to their rules”:

It’s not the first time that Brewer has called for the reintroduction of paddles to schools, as back in 2022 he told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence – following the massacre in Uvalde, Texas – he said: “If we’re going to get serious about gun violence, then we must first get serious about bringing the paddle and prayer back to our public schools.”

“We do not even teach the 10 Commandments in our public schools anymore, much less hold our children accountable to them.” Brewer added.

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