Prisoners at a whipping post in a Delaware prison, c. 1907.
Is it just me, or does it seem very, very odd for the man administering the punishment to be so poshly dressed while doing something so nasty?
This picture surprised me. It shows how little I know about the prison system in developed Western countries, because I thought whipping was long gone by this point in time. (Yes, I’m an idiot, considering capital punishment was still around then in many, many countries – and still is in America.)

I then Googled “Flogging in America” and came up with another picture:

A public flogging in Delaware in the early 1900s
Why is it always Delaware they photographed?!
Naturally, I then looked up the history of flogging in Australia, as that’s where I am. Floggings here were essentially stopped in 1943, but then two final floggings were performed in Victoria 1958, on two – I have to say – total idiots. Their names were John Henry Taylor and William John O’Meally. O’Meally had the dubious honour of being the final man to be flogged in Australia.
I find these dates disturbingly recent.
I’m still trying to get some definitive facts about flogging in the United States, but I find the differences between states (and the extremely different attitudes of people from different areas) make it all very confusing! I’m also not enjoying the research all that much.
However, I did come up with this.
More pictures if you feel like seeing them!