Was the Punishment a Crime?

For the 300 or so members of the Northeast Kingdom Community Church in tiny Island Pond, Vt. (est. pop. 1,200), corporal punishment of children is part of their Fundamentalist creed. But to their neighbors, it looked like child abuse. There were reports from former church members that babies less than six months old were hit with wooden rods. One 13-year-old girl was said to have been beaten for eight hours, until her body was covered with welts, as punishment for telling a lie. Said Linda Schneider, a former church member: "A child would cry, and they would beat him with a rod until he was 'obedient.' That was their favorite word."

Last week a force of 80 police officers, accompanied by 50 social workers, raided communal homes of church members and took away 112 children for medical evaluations. Church members charged that the raids were a form of religious persecution and a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. Vermont officials insisted they were protecting the rights of the children. A state judge, after a closed court proceeding, refused to detain the youngsters. By day's end all the children were on their way home with their parents. A lawyer for some of the parents said that charges may be filed against the police for civil rights violations.