I recently received a letter concerning a divorce in America. The letter writer noted that the beis din sent him a letter which said (this is my paraphrasing) :
A plan was being developed - if you had resisted giving the get - that would have prevented you from seeing your children for many years and you would have been severely beaten and tortured.
As the recent indictments of Mendel Epstein and associates have shown - the above was not a rare event and it was apparently common knowledge amongst American rabbis and those dealing with gittin. Why was it tolerated? 1) Was it simply an acknowledgment that justice for women requires ignoring halacha and secular law? 2) Was it too lucrative for rabbis and therefore they don't want to disturb another rabbi's parnossa? 3) Perhaps the rabbis were afraid of being called a moser or suffer other sanctions. The answer obviously is all of the above.
Furthermore while such activity is clearly illegal according to the law of the land (dina d'malchuso) it is also illegal according to halacha and produced an invalid get. Even if you want to argue that beis din has the ability to administer this type of punishment - I think that is only a community beis din which is appointed and supported by the community - such as existed in Europe. However in most cases the beis din in America that deal with these cases is an ad hoc entity which is not connected to the community and is certainly not authorized by it.
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