A five year old girl was acting violently in kindergarden, punching and kicking teachers (the article doesn't mention her attacking other students). After repeated phone calls to the police station, the police officers decided to handcuff her. The mother disapproved of the police's actions, but the officers "were not disciplined because their actions were deemed within policy".

I'm with the police on this one. If someone intentionally does something wrong, they should be punished for it. In this case, the punishment was "merely" the experience of being in handcuffs, which presumably the mother didn't like because of the possibility of traumatizing the child. But I think that having that child restrained is better than the next obvious alternative: Not restraining the child.

My father seems to support that latter strategy: If his daughter should misbehave in such a way as to cause inconvenience to me (for example, by acting violently against me), I should just "take it". I disagree strongly. She has no right to attack me, and so not only is she morally wrong, but she's pretty stupid if she thinks she (a seven year old girl) can take on me (a 22 year old male), so she needs to be taught a lesson in both accounts, one for the greater good of society, and one for her own good (she needs to learn how to assess who is a smart target for attack and who isn't).

I'm not going to kill her, and I'm not going to beat her up so bad that she needs any medical treatment at all (including medical treatment as light as a kiss on her "boo boo"); I might just unbalance her so that she falls down (her arms free to stop her own fall), or block her punches with my fist (a fist punching a fist hurts both of us, but I think she has a lower tolerance for pain than I do) or something mild like that. From this cop's point of view, there's no reason he should have to just "sit tight", enduring the girl's kicks, hair pulling, or whatever tactics she might use. If someone behaves in such a way to imply that they will continue to act violently unless restrained, then they should be restrained.

The main argument against punishing children seems to be that they are too young to realize what they are doing. Punishment is supposed to be a deterrent to undesired behaviour. If the person you're punishing is not smart/aware/sentient/whatever enough to learn, from being punishment, that they should stop performing the undesired behaviour, then the punishment is a waste of time and energy both for the person being punished and for the person doing the punishing. That's why it generally doesn't make sense to punish a baby (less than 1 year old), for example: They won't be able to associate the punishment with the act that was undesired.

However, in the case that you're dealing with something without enough intelligence/awareness/sentience/whatever to learn from the punishment, that doesn't mean you're left to suffer forever. Let's say my next door neighbor leaves her rake across my driveway, in the path my car would take when it leaves the driveway. This is clearly undesired behaviour, on the part of the rake. I don't, in blind rage, destroy the rake and toss the pieces into the trash can. Rather, I'll pick up the rake, and prop it up against the side of my neighbor's house. Since the rake is not my property, I can't do permanent damage to it. However, that doesn't mean I'm helpless against it, if it should impede on my life in some way. I just adjust the situation in a way that allows me to go about my life undisturb, without overly inconveniencing the owner of the property. Perhaps the owner is a real bitch, and says that she wants her rake exactly the way she left it, splayed across my driveway. Well, then we have a conflict, and one of us is going to be unhappy. But if the neighbor doesn't really care either way, then there was no harm done in moving the rake, and I've made my own life easier.

So if a kid is kicking a police officer, and the kid is deemed not sentient enough to be able to learn from punishment, the police officer adjusted the situation in a way that allows me to go about my life undisturb, without overly inconveniencing the owner of the property. The property in this case, is the kid's body, and that body is the property of the kid herself. No permanent damage was done, and if the kid doesn't like it, then there's a conflict, but it's either the officer or the kid who has to suffer, and I think most people would agree that the officer isn't doing anything wrong, while the kid is. This suffering is not a result of a punishment, but due to a conflict on interest. Totally different issue.