There are quite a few studies out there already on frequent corporal punishment for behaviour modification purposes - studies done on mental asylum patients, disabled people, marginalized minorities, prisoners, juvenile delinquents, etc. Most of these studies are many decades old, though, since they didn't have to worry about ethics very much back then, plus the use of corporal punishment was indeed permitted on certain groups of people with fewer rights.
Statistical methods weren't as good back then, either, but good statisticians existed even then, so some of the results are still pretty informative.
The majority (though not all) of the studies found regular beatings failed to achieve consistent behaviour modification.
However, those old studies included only unwilling participants, so the results might actually come out differently if the subjects participate voluntarily. But then you would have to somehow figure out a preliminary survey questionnaire that would successfully separate the subjects who truly believe this treatment would work, from those who enjoy it for its own sake. Because that variable would definitely bias the results if you didn't take it into account. |