For our next adventure in blogging, read the news articles below, then post a response to the discussion prompt.
• Justice as a Morality Play That Ends With Shame (New York Times)
• Shame on You (Washington Post)
What is your position on the role of public humiliation as punishment in the criminal justice system today? Is it appropriate? Is it effective? Support your view with appropriate evidence.
The deadline for posting is
These articles were both very interesting and different. I had heard about the use of unusual punishments through other news sources, but it was really interesting to have them related explicitly to The Scarlet Letter. This is really a tricky issue because there are so many sides to the story. I personally have no problem with sex offenders being required to post notices of their crimes because they have committed terrible acts and the public needs to be aware of the danger they pose to society. Things change, however, when judges hand out these humiliating punishments simply for their own amusement or to destroy someone’s reputation. It was eye-opening when the “Shame on You” article said that “public punishments can be harshest on the most commonly targeted and vulnerable group– young people.” I think we can all agree, no matter our stance on this issue, that there is a considerable difference between a rapist and a fourteen-year-old girl who decided to vandalize her school one night on a whim. When humiliating punishments are educational they can be effective, but in many other instances they border on unconstitutionality and go against American values of personal liberty. Of course a drug addict may benefit from going to church, but that should be left to a counselor, not a judge. The law needs to be separate from the Church, not intertwined as in Hester Prynne’s world.
ReplyDeleteAlessandra
I agree with Alessandra that allowing this type of punishment subjects us to the whims of judges. One thing that really stood out to me was the case of Judge Carlisle, in which the Judge felt that a person accused of littering was “kind of cocky.” As a result, the judge forced him to scrape gum off of the bottom of benches. This demonstrates how little the crime actually matters with these types of punishments. The punishment should be based on the crime, not on the brief impression the judge has of the criminal. The sense a judge has of a person is not an accurate measure of what their punishment should be. Alessandra briefly touched upon another thing that really stood out to me. In “Shame on You,” the author mentions a case in which “Judge Sidney Nation suspended almost all of Brenton Jay Raffensperger's seven-year sentence for cocaine possession and driving under the influence in exchange for his promise to buy a casket and keep it in his home to remind him of the costs of drug addiction.” This stood out to me because it takes away a very substantial punishment and replaces it with a very insubstantial punishment. Seven years in prison will have a lasting effect on anyone, but different people will be affected differently by buying a casket. The severity of a punishment should be uniform for a particular crime. Allowing judges to inflict these punishments allows serious offenders to get off light. Although it may be more effective in some cases, it ultimately undermines the judicial system.
ReplyDelete~Amanda
S.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree with Alessandra and Amanda in that a public humilitation sentence is subject to the whims of a judge, I think that public humiliation can in some cases be a stronger deterrant to commit an illegal act than jail time or the current form of judicial punishment. Currently I think public humiliation is very poorly implemented. Humiliation and shame are tools that could effectively be used to better society. As puritanical as that sounds, if public humiliation was logically implemented in cases where bringing attention to the crime would make others safer, such as a child molester having to tell his neighbors that he is a child molester, than I would encourage the practice. Unfortunately, when a judge whose "religious beliefs are difficult to separate from his legal ones" feels that it is ok to humiliate people because they "have too good a self-esteem" just seems like an abuse of power to me. If there are more judges like the one described above in both articles, then there are certainly bigger problems with the judicial system than public humiliation.
ReplyDelete^ Matt
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Alessandra and Amanda S. Public humiliation can be effective in certain situations but it is not appropriate method of legal punishment. The article, Shame On You, mentions the case of two teenagers who were sentenced to lead a donkey around town carrying a sign that read, "Sorry for the Jackass Offense." From the wording of the sign, I interpret this sentence to be very much for the purpose of the judge's personal amusement. This is also the case for the "judicially supervised burglaries" ordered by Judge Joe Brown. Ordering a victim of theft to steal from the home of the person who stole from them is entirely inappropriate and sends many immoral messages. Brown ordered this punishment merely because he could under the Tennessee law and because he found it to be comical. This is not a legally sounds practice and it is not how the legal system should be run. If this behavior is condoned in judges, who is going to draw the line between which sentences of public humiliation are appropriate and which are not?
ReplyDelete-Amanda C
I think I'm going to have to disagree with my bud Amanda C. I don't think the appeal or the motivation behind public shaming is the amusement of the judge. I think it is more along the lines of Hammurabi's Code (an eye for an eye...) in most cases like the example of the stepfather who is ordered to sleep in the doghouse where he forced his stepson to sleep. Instead of spending thirty days sleeping in jail which could be his sentence for a minor theft or disturbance, he actually learns the extent of the damage he caused.
ReplyDeleteFor other cases like the youths who have to walk down the street with a donkey, I think that is a more effective punishment than jail time, because spending time in jail can be a mark of pride to some people, but who would brag that they were paraded down Main street escorted by a donkey?
-Slick
While I understand my dear friend Slick Nick, I have to respectfully (but aggressively) disagree. While we can debate for hours whether a particular punishment makes a criminal “feel worse” about what they have done or realize the extent of their actions, the implementation of judges’ creative whims on the justice system is unconstitutional and unfair. Regardless as to whether the punishments themselves are “cruel and unusual,” more customized sentences begin to undermine another constitutional promise, the right to a fair trial. If we allow judges to exhibit their own creative liberties in sentencing, the judicial process is no longer objective, but subjective. The punishments for given crimes may vary from person to person (what if one convict didn’t have season tickets to the Packers to give up? Would they be treated to some worse punishment?), and the overall effect this has is, in the words of Jonathan Turley, to make “citizens…increasingly uncertain about the consequences of their actions.” Giving judges creative liberties, no matter how satisfying the resulting sentences may be, to put it mildly, would be the downfall of the American justice system and the US Constitution.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Will’s argument that it is unconstitutional for judges to be able to use their own creativity in the sentencing of criminals and that the U.S. justice system could be negatively impacted. While I do not believe that public humiliation as a punishment is completely ethical, I do believe that it is appropriate in certain situations. As Alessandra said, I feel that such criminals as rapists or robbers should have a public notice displayed in order to warn others of the potential danger they could be placed in. This is simply helping protect society from those that may do them harm to help prevent any further issues. However, I do not agree with public punishment when it is used, as Jonathan Turley describes in “Shame on You,” as a means for “judges to vie for notoriety through sentencing.” While it is important to build a good reputation as a judge, it is inappropriate to use creative sentences that severely impact victims’ lives as a means of doing so.
ReplyDeleteIn Dean E. Murphy’s article “The Nation; Justice as a Morality Play Ends With Shame,” the author notes that “For practical and legal reasons, there has been no rush to challenge the shame-based sentences. In most cases, they are offered as an alternative to prison, which removes the incentive to make an issue of it.” This causes me to strongly disagree with public humiliation as punishment, even more than the judge’s creativity issue, because I do not believe criminals should be kept out of prison in place of such punishment. If a person committed a serious crime they should be jailed. Keeping such criminals out of jail could pose as a danger to society. Sure, they may be embarrassed by the shameful punishment they are sentenced to, but they are still roaming free in the world with an opportunity to commit the same crime again. What if humiliation alone is not enough to stop a criminal?
Kristina
I completely agree with Will on the point that public humiliation as a punishment becomes highly subjective. That becomes the worst danger. Like Amanda C. pointed out, these punishments can just be influenced by a judge's personal feelings toward the convicted criminal rather than an impartial decision.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do agree with Alessandra and Kristina that some forms of public humiliation can be effective for the purpose of spreading knowledge (i.e. ordering rapists to post information of their past crimes), I also think there is a gradual progression from just and appropriate to irrational and unconstitutional. The problem is you cannot draw a line and clearly label one side as "good" and the other "bad". It boils down to one's interpretations, bringing us back to the issue of objectivity vs. subjectivity.
Jonathan Turley says himself that judges are not appointed to “serve as parents trying to set consequences for wayward children.” They should not be the sole deciders of what beyond the law is “morally” effective in deterring crime. Sentencing drug addicts and alcoholics to punishments that try to teach a lesson do not get at the core of the problem, the addiction. I believe that judges who “personally tailor new forms of punishment” can distort the legal system into a subjective playing field for judges.
Sara A.
In Jonathan Turley's article "Shame on You," the author states that "A judge is allowed to weigh guilt and impose sentences. Yet it is the legislature that should define the forms and range of permissible punishment for a crime." I agree with Will and Kristina that giving Judges the power to chose humiliating punishments that suit them is unconstitutional. The entire American government system is based on values of checks and balances, in which no single branch of government can do what they please without the approval or assistance of at least one other branch. Allowing judges to convict and punish criminals violates checks and balances. The legislative branch should chose punishments for the crime, and the judges should simply determine whether or not they are guilty, if not a jury.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Judges are human beings. This means that they are temperamental, and have varying moods on different days. If they are allowed to chose punishments, particularly humiliating ones that run the risk of being cruel and unusual, a Judge who just had a kid might sentence a sex offender to be forced to wear a goofy pink shirt for a day as his punishment, and a judge who missed breakfast might sentence a teenage vandal to tattoo himself with the obscenities he painted on the school bathroom. This goes along with Amanda C's and Sara's point. The natural sway of a persons disposition is evidence enough that we shouldn't let a single person mess around with whatever punishment for a criminal that pleases him or her.
-Drew
I agree with Drew, I think that allowing a judge to pick a punishment is a huge violation of the check and balance system. If you allow a judge to pick a crime they might act differently based on prejudices and their mood. I think that Nick's point that these crimes might make the offender feel worse is a good one. I like the idea of the father having to sleep in the dog house that he forced his son to sleep in, however I do not think that that is punishment enough. At the same time people who commit minor crimes could learn more from a special punishment such as walking the donkey around town because like previously stated, it is more embarrassing then prison.
ReplyDeleteThe question then becomes where to draw the line because some special punishments could be effective for certain crimes and completely ineffective for others. I like when Sara A. said that "sentencing drug addicts and alcoholics to punishments that try to teach a lesson do not get at the core of the problem, the addiction." If that is the case is it safer to eliminate these creative ideas and stick only to laws already in place?
Rose
Personally, I found almost all of the cases of creative, shame based punishments mentioned in both articles to be disturbing examples of America’s willingness to allow subjectivity to erode the justice system, which exists to protect the residents of America with the virtues of justice, equality, and fairness. Through such subjective punishments, judges will have the power to impose their personal beliefs, whether they religious or philosophical, upon the criminal. Considering that a majority elects all municipal and state judges, this process of imposition, often heralded by the community, only works to homogenize the perspective of the region under the judge’s jurisdiction, creating a type of sectionalism that I believe will fracture the righteous ideals intended to bind us together, and to some degree, already has.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the comments made by Mr. Slick, I would like to remind everyone that our justice system in America is supported by a foundation laid by a series of precedents, many of which are made as our evolving nation confronts scenarios, never foreseen by our forefathers. Although punishments that involve being publicly humiliating by parading around the town with a donkey may seem innocuous or effective, even humorous, they set a precedent that could allow judges to create much more damaging punishments that could undermine state penal codes and affirm the dominance of subjectivity over objectivity.
On a slightly different train of thought, creative punishments also call for creative means of enforcement, which the judicial branch does not have the authority to administer.
Simon G.
Matt makes an excellent point: when implemented with restraint, humiliation can be an effective way of punishing criminals. I think we shudder at the idea of public humiliation as punishment because it seems so backward. We associate public humiliation with the Dark Ages and Hawthorne’s dismal tale, with stocks and dunce caps. Ignore these connotations and humiliation is the most powerful means of punishing criminals because it gets to the very root of human nature. As Judge Poe puts it, “‘Most of us care about what people think of us. If we are held up to public ridicule, we don't like it and two things will happen. We will change our conduct and our attitudes.’”
ReplyDeleteI think the criminal justice system is too sanitized. Convicted criminals are so isolated from society that we know little about them, and thus, forget about them and their crimes. Public humiliation serves as a walking, talking reminder to ordinary citizens, a reminder that stupid crimes have unpleasant consequences. I think modest public humiliation, in addition to jail time, is a good way to set criminals straight and deter citizens from making criminal mistakes.
Also, public humiliation is cheaper for the government and more meaningful for criminals. Instead of throwing a vandal in jail for a few days, which costs about $52.90 a day, why not have them spend a few moments holding up a cheap cardboard sign? If we need to cut the federal budget, maybe we should turn to old-fashioned shame. At the same time, humiliation forces criminals to publicly apologize to whoever they have wronged.
Source:
"Statistics in Brief - Inmate Cost Per Day." Florida Department of Corrections. Sep 2008. 13
Apr 2009 http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/cost.html.
Alie G
Regarding Nick’s point on the “eye for an eye” point, and the issue of subjectivity vs. objectivity, I agree with the fact that public humiliation is harmful. While such punishments wearing signs and parading donkeys around town may begin as harmless, they have the potential to develop into something detrimental to the American justice system. If we follow the current trend of an “eye for an eye” that Judges Poe and Brown seem to be following, our justice system will collapse. Where does one draw the line between making an abusive father sleep in the doghouse he make his son sleep in, and beating and assaulter, or raping a rapist? Justice is not the time for creativity, or reciprocation. Our justice system is designed to each criminal a fair and appropriate punishment. When Judge’s aim to reciprocate the crime, without any boundaries, they will lose their role as objective evaluators and become spectators with power.
ReplyDelete-Katia
I strongly agree with Katia's statement that judges with the ability to impose creative punishments will gain unfair power. The general requirement for judges, as I understand, is to monitor and administer justice on occaisons of both guilt and innocence. Yet, should no standards exist for punishment, then who is to determine whether justice has been achieved? Punishments could vary from public humiliation to years of jail time, with no evidence as to which is more effective or righteous. Giving judges such unrestricted options only paves the way for corruption and a slow deterioration of the legal system, destroying the national system of checks and balances concerning the judicial branch.
ReplyDeleteShould public humiliaton as punishment be further explored and regulated however, it could serve useful in certain situations. As Kristina said, it can be important to notify people of a potentially dangerous convict in their area, but at what point does this notification infringe upon the [former] convict's right to privacy. In my opinion, in order for public humiliation to become an acceptable form of punishment, it would have to be more closely regulated.
-Sara N.
I'd like to backtrack to Alie G.'s point about the cost of public humiliation. True, yes, putting a cardboard sign on somebody for a day costs only what half a cardboard box and a Sharpie does. However, as stated in Dean E. Murphy's article, it is uncertain whether public humiliation actually "affects human behavior." I disagree with the idea that a punishment of wearing a sign for a day has a stronger personal effect than sending someone to prison. There the can taste what they've done in the prison food, feel it in their bones when they wake from an unrestful sleep on the hard prison beds, see it in the mirror when they look at their red, puffy, sleep-deprived eyes.
ReplyDeleteOf course, saying this, I recognize it's not the cheapest action to throw people into prison. To truly prevent convicted criminals from committing crimes again, successful rehabilitation is needed to place these people back into everyday life. Yet this costs money, too. The point I think is vital to understand is that public humiliation is not effective in preventing crime, and neither is it appropriate in most situations.
Another example of public humiliation punishments comes from my former home state of Arizona. Sheriff Joe Arpaio (he's crazy -- citation: me) has established a place nicknamed "Tent City" out in the desert. Literally, there are rows of tents. Most prisoners in Tent City are those convicted of DUI offenses, and are sentenced to an amount of time in these tents while wearing hot pink underwear and black and white striped prison uniforms (check this out: http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/27/tough.sheriff/).
I don't see how this can be viewed as effective; I don't think a drunk person getting behind the wheel of a car would process the thought of "I don't want to wear pink underwear in the desert for a week."
Aly B.
I think what proponents of public humiliation as punishment seem to forget is that jail is degrading enough. In Psychology class, we watched a documentary about an experiment conducted by a psychologist in which a group of high school students volunteered to simulate "prison." They were randomly assigned the position of "guard" or "inmate." It was incredible to watch how quickly the false position took over their real personalities. The guards gave them cruel and nonsensical orders, such as doing countless push-ups while singing "Amazing Grace" and eating food off the dirty floor. As easily as the guards turned powerful and domineering, the prisoners became vulnerable and frightened. They stopped asserting themselves, and gave up on using free will. In only a week, they lost their strength of spirit from the degradation they experienced in jail. Imagine the horror of having to undergo this for months.
ReplyDeleteI think that prison is enough. When a person goes to jail, he or she is scarred for life. That person cannot effectively reenter the world. I believe that should suffice! Judges who inflict public humiliation are just being self-indulgent and showing off their accomplishment. Any Judge that derives pleasure from punishing someone is not fit for his or her position. An eye for an eye makes the world go blind. A tooth for a tooth and the world is toothless. If the government wants to make a point about right and wrong, it should not publicly shame prisoners, because that is, indeed, cruel and unusual punishment. It is fair to say that such punishment is just as horrific as the crime itself.
Another thing that I would like to add that no one seems to have touched on yet is that the connection between these "subjective punishments" and the church is undeniable. If a Judge sentences a Muslim woman to "church," will she be changed by it? Absolutely not. Not only is such a punishment discriminatory, but it defies the law of separation of church and state. When "good" is the church and "bad" is a life of crime, where do perfectly innocent non-Christians go? It seems utterly absurd. In the Puritan society of The Scarlet Letter, religion is the law. Now, that is not the case, and we cannot and will not change that.