Judicial corporal punishment ("JCP") is the formal application of flogging, caning, birching, whipping, strapping or spanking as an official sentence by order of a court, as laid down for specified offences under the law of the country concerned. Once commonplace in many countries, it has now been abolished in nearly all the Western world, but remains a standard penalty in some Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries. These are mostly either former British colonies (now members of the Commonwealth) such as Malaysia, Singapore and Tanzania, or Muslim countries with a system of Islamic (Sharia) law.

The Singaporean official punishment of caning became much discussed around the world in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for vandalism. Since that time, the number of caning sentences handed down each year in Singapore has doubled.

Other ex-British territories with judicial caning currently on their statute books include Barbados, Botswana, Brunei, Swaziland, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, and Zimbabwe. It has been abolished in recent decades in Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, Jamaica, Kenya, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Zambia.

In the United Kingdom itself, JCP was abolished in 1948. It was removed from the statute book in Canada in 1972, in India in the 1950s, in New Zealand in 1941, and in Australia at various times in the 20th century according to State.

Many countries with an Islamic legal system, such as Iran, northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen employ judicial whipping or caning for a range of offences. In Indonesia (Aceh province only) it has recently been introduced for the first time.

Other countries that were neither British nor Islamic that have used JCP in the more distant past include China, Germany, Korea, Sweden and Vietnam. In the United States it was last used in 1952 in Delaware.