Does Shaming Work as a Crime Control Policy - Essay Example

Running Head: Crime Control Policy Does Shaming Work as a Crime Control Policy? An Analysis Paper Submission Introduction For the past two decades, proposals demanding for the adoption of alternative punishments have received much interest partly because there are presently more than 2 million people in federal and state penitentiaries (Kahan, 2006). Disappointed by the obvious failure of the criminal justice system to trim down offender populations at an acceptable cost, different intellectuals with distinct political objectives have suggested more cost-effective and more efficient techniques to diminish numbers of prisoners and reduce recidivism. Several of these alternative crime control methods are innately stigmatic and do not require imprisonment, like degrading community service, criminal fines, and, most contentiously, shaming sanctions. This paper analyzes and determines the nature and effectiveness of shaming sanctions. Shaming Sanctions: Does it Work? Legal scholars have largely focused on alternatives to imprisonment. Even though general alliances support further implementation of alternative punishments as a major issue, heightened academic debate has revolved around the adoption of shaming sanctions. Shaming sanctions are punishments intended to debase and stigmatize a criminal in public while encouraging a certain extent of public involvement in that debasement and stigmatization (Marshall, 2001). Specifically, a shaming punishment “exposes the offender to public view and heap[s] ignominy upon him in a way that other alternative sanctions to imprisonment, like fines and community service, do not” (Markel, 2001, 2155). Shaming punishments are varied in form. The humiliation might stick on to the criminal personally. Petty thieves, for instance, have been obliged to wear tops stating, “I am on felony probation for theft” (Markel, 2001. 2155). On the other hand, shaming sanctions may affix the humiliation to the criminal’s property, like a notice that states, “Warning: Thief Lives Here” (Markel, 2001, 2155). Another method requires publicly revealing the personal information of criminals. Placing faces and names on public sites or in the Internet are present-day counterparts of colonial America’s shaming punishments. Apparently, one distinction between contemporary types of shaming and the shaming punishments of the 18th century is that the public do not physically attack individuals who are shamed in public (Book, 1999). When a criminal was put in stocks, throwing moldy eggs was allowed, while nowadays people do not expect to provoke egg throwers when offenders are compelled to stand outside a department store and wear a cardboard sign saying, “I am a petty thief.” In contrast, the public expect that the constitution will safeguard the offender from the crowd (Friedman, 1993). Yet, according to Markel (2007), the increased prevalence of vigilantism recently proves that this expectation could not be valid anymore without adequate protections. As one of the primary supporters of shaming punishments, Professor Kahan (2006) argued mainly for the advantages of shaming punishments. He claimed, these punishments require lesser financial and social cost while providing a similar level of ‘punishment premium’ (Markel, 2007, 1385), a concept possibly most accurately known as a composite of social display of disapproval and broad deterrence, to that of imprisonment. This argument was important for Kahan. Without a doubt, he never said that shaming involved an innately appealing type of punishment; he only argued that shaming a criminal was less harsh, less openly humiliating, and less prone to hinder a criminal’s future opportunities than imprisonment. As a result, Kahan believed shaming was “unquestionably less problematic than imprisonment along nearly every dimension of what constitutes just punishment” (Markel, 2007, 1385). The reappearance of shaming sanctions has been strongly supported by Amita Etzioni, Eric Posner, and Dan Kahan. Kahan (2006) discovered that alternative punishments were quite uncommon several years ago because of their inability to convey ‘the dimension of severity’ (p. 2076) that all kinds of sanction should show if they are to be politically viable. The desirable quality of shaming sanctions, as argued by Kahan and Posner, is that they damage the reputation of the criminal more successfully and completely than fines do, and, by degrading the offender in public, make the future reintegration of the criminal into society harder (Markel, 2007): individuals will avoid any encounter or interaction with the criminal as much as possible because s/he is popular for being a ‘bad person’. Well-known sociologist and communitarian scholar Amitai Etzioni has also supported the reimplementation of shaming sanctions. Etzioni (2003) states that shaming sanctions should be performed not just for offenders, but also for ‘bad Samaritans’ (p. 38), or individuals who could have done something to stop or discourage a brutal offense with no or minor danger to themselves, should have their faces and names posted on major newspapers and the Internet. Etzioni (2003) claims that shaming sanctions are “relatively light, especially if one takes into account that most other penalties shame in addition to inflicting their designated hurt” (p. 41). As explained by Etzioni, one advantage of shaming is its profoundly just nature (Etzioni, 2003, 42): Shaming reflects the community’s values and hence cannot be imposed by the authorities against a people. Thus, if being sent to the principal’s office is a badge of honor in a boy’s peer culture, no shaming will occur in that situation. A yellow star, imposed to mark and shame Jews in Nazi Germany, is now worn as a matter of pride in Israel. Thus people are protected better from shaming than from other forms of punishment, punishment that can be imposed by authorities without the specific consent of those who are governed. Scholars are apparently not the only ones supporting shaming sanctions, because law enforcers and judges are the persons administering them (Hughes, 1998). However, it is not clear whether judges are using shaming sanctions to reduce punishment costs or because they view shaming sanctions as more productive types of displaying social denunciation. But similarly important as the debate over the strengths and limitations of sanction punishments is the question whether this alternative sanction is effective or not in controlling crime or recidivism. This issue is addressed in this paper by exploring and discussing John Worrall’s views of shaming as a crime control policy. John Worrall on Shaming Punishments John Worrall begins his discussion of shaming with an explanation of the emotional impacts of public humiliation to an offender. According to him, the consequent social exclusion and loss of reputation are the most powerful ingredients of shaming punishments. He also differentiates between shame and guilt. Shame embodies a view of one’s value as an individual. Hence, the whole self remains reviled in shame’s point of view. On the contrary, guilt differentiates between the offense and the offender, denouncing the wrong but not the wrongdoer (Worrall, 2008). Also, since shame is absolute, it overwhelms the actual self and denies it of rationale and chance to recover. On the contrary, since guilt puts emphasis on the sin, it provides the sinner with a chance and encouragement s/he needs to recover and correct his/her mistakes. Basically, the argument of Worrall (2008) is that courts should not implement alternative sanctions, like shaming, unless there is a certain level of chance that they will rehabilitate, and, later on, reintegrate criminals into the society. If these sanctions are ineffective, enforcing them would only squander judicial resources, effort, and time, and would lead to providing a criminal an opportunity to perpetrate crime again. According to John Worrall (2008), although there are no empirical findings substantiating the success of shaming as sanction, there are proofs that shaming is an ingenious and effective way of keeping several criminals out of the penitentiaries while at the same time providing them an opportunity to make amends. For most people, sense of right and wrong, or conscience, and shame are totally entwined both to prevent criminal activities and inflict a self-penalty on offenders. Nevertheless, there are people who perpetrate crimes in spite of the presence of conscience. The conscience of these people may have fallen short with regard to their deviant behavior (Worrall, 2008). In these situations, shame sanction has the best possible impact (Braithwaite, 1999, 72): “[S]haming can be a reaffirmation of the morality of the offender by expressing personal disappointment that the offender should do something so out of character…” Shame can work as both a successful punishment of offenders and an instrument for the rehabilitation of criminals. Undoubtedly, shaming can be an effective instrument, but merely in a society that has a direct need for it and implements it correctly. But, as Worrall (2008) briefly shows, shaming as punishment has received quite a few criticisms, especially from David Karp and John Braithwaite. Worrall (2008) shows that both the supporters and critics of shaming sanctions have determined a direct connection between the execution of shaming sanctions and the retributivist explanation for sanctions. Worrall (2008) identifies why retribution, as proposed by Braithwaite, when correctly interpreted, is truly unsympathetic toward shaming sanctions. According to David Karp, the American society does not possess the degree of interdependence, strong communitarianism, and well-built norm solidity that would render shaming successful. Due to these societal dilemmas, Karp argued that public shaming by a judge will be, largely, a retributive exhibition that is empty of other constructive community-strengthening or community-expressive substance (Worrall, 2008). Hence, even though Karp, as well as Braithwaite, accepted that any of the established purposes of punishment could be fulfilled by the execution of shaming sanctions, they believed that the present cultural or societal condition makes shaming sanctions entirely unfavorable. The fascinating question then is: How did Karp and Braithwaite claim that retributivism could allow a shaming sanction, and certainly support it? The appeal of retributivism, as explained by Braithwaite, is that it gratifies profound instinctive, emotional impulses. Furthermore, its objectives are plainly laid out and quite easy to establish. We penalize so as to get even, not to control, rehabilitate, or prevent. Revenge is simpler to perform than these other purposes (Worrall, 2008). Braithwaite (2000) wraps up his argument of retributive shaming by wondering whether making an apology or wearing a cardboard sign would gratify the interest of the society in revenge. He concludes that it might, but he is uncertain that shaming sanctions would adequately convey community indignation in different communities. Therefore, Worrall, in essence, tried to answer the question, why might it be that intellectuals like Karp and Braithwaite believed that shaming sanctions could be strengthened by a retributive perspective? One possible reason is historical. In the disagreement about the validation of criminal sanction, there has, historically, been a single moralizing perspective (Worrall, 2008). Retribution, for moralists, was the sole equal at the task. And in addition, shaming, at first impression, is entirely moralistic. But first impression is usually wrong; nevertheless, given the arguments of both supporters and critics it may appear virtually natural to connect retribution to shaming. Conclusions Shaming sanctions, as repeatedly mentioned above, are punishments that depend on the criminal’s public rebuke in a manner deliberately intended both to display disapproval of the criminal and his/her actions, and to do so in a manner that degrades the criminal in front of the public. These punishments base their success in moral denouncement from dependence upon dissemination of moral repulsion by the larger society. Hence shaming sanctions, by encouraging the support of the public, question the notion that it is merely the state that could serve a function in the process of performing retribution. The breadth of the incongruity between retribution and shaming sanctions can be viewed by differentiating revenge with retribution. The critics of shaming sanctions were undoubtedly influenced by status quo preconception. The possible risks they observed in shame were not far-fetched. However, viewing them as absolute bases for disregarding shame would lead to the assurance of the even larger disadvantages of incarceration: the traditional punishment without a meaningfully feasible alternative punishment. If we are troubled that shaming is harsh, then we should be troubled doubly about putting offenders in jail rather than shaming, because imprisonment is undoubtedly more agonizing and mortifying than shaming. All one is required to do to verify this is talk to criminals, who usually prefer shaming as a probation provision instead of life in prison. References Book, A. (1999). “Shame on You: An Analysis of Modern Shame Punishment as an Alternative to Incarceration” William and Mary Law Review, 40(2), 653. Braithwaite, J. (1989). Crime, Shame, and Reintegration. UK: Cambridge University Press. Braithwaite, J. (2000). “Shame and Criminal Justice” Canadian Journal of Criminology, 42(3), 281. Etzioni, A. (2003). The Monochrome Society. London: Princeton University Press. Friedman, L. (1993). Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books. Hughes, G. (1998). Understanding Crime Prevention: Social Control, Risk, and Late Modernity. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Kahan, D. (2006). “What’s Really Wrong with Shaming Sanctions?” Texas Law Review, 84(7), 2075+ Markel, D. (2001). “Are Shaming Punishments Beautifully Retributive? Retributivism and the Implications for the Alternative Sanctions Debate” Vanderbilt Law Review, 54(6), 2155+ Markel, D. (2007). “Wrong Turns on the Road to Alternative Sanctions: Reflections on the Future of Shaming Punishments and Restorative Justice” Texas Law Review, 85(6), 1385+ Marshall, C. (2001). Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment. Grand Rapids, MI: William Ferdmans. Worrall, J. (2008). Crime Control in America: What Works? New York: Allyn and Bacon. Read More