Public Shaming as Punishment

Although criminologists have made a compelling case that incarceration degrades offenders, hardens their antisocial tendencies, and is extraordinarily expensive, imprisonment rates remain high in the United States. Since the 1960s, there has been growing recognition that it makes sense to divert nonviolent and infrequent offenders to probation supervision, halfway houses, work release programs, and other community corrections programs that keep offenders out of prison and as close as possible to their families and job opportunities. As of December 31, 2009, approximately 70 percent of the men and women under correctional supervision were under community supervision, and [Page 357]approximately 30 percent were housed in local jails and state or federal prisons.

It strikes many as paradoxical that the increase in community-based programs that offer an alternative to imprisonment has been accompanied by what seems to be a growing judicial willingness to impose “shaming” or “scarlet letter” punishments on offenders. Convicted offenders have been forced to place bumper stickers on their cars, post signs in their yards, carry signs, or wear T-shirts proclaiming their guilt. Sometimes these punishments are imposed in addition to a jail or prison term, but often they are meted out as an alternative to imprisonment, usually as a condition of probation. This practice raises the following question: When a shaming punishment accompanies a community-based sentence, does it add to the deterrent or rehabilitative effects of the punishment, or does it undermine these laudable goals of punishment by humiliating and stigmatizing the offender?

Shaming Punishments in Early America

The early settlers in North America brought with them a firm belief in the effectiveness of shaming punishments, painful corporal punishments, or a combination of both. More than a dozen offenses, including murder, treason, robbery, and rape, were punishable by death. Corporal punishments that were meant to inflict both public humiliation and intense pain were routinely meted out to vagrants, beggars, petty thieves, Sabbath breakers, and other minor offenders. The whipping post, the branding iron, and the pillory were prominently displayed and frequently employed in the town squares of 17th-and 18th-century America. Political and religious leaders found the pillory (a set of wooden frames with holes for the head, hands, and sometimes the feet) to be an especially versatile device for inflicting a large dose of shame and a requisite measure of pain. The spectacle of a miscreant helpless in its grasp, his head protruding through its beams and his hands through two holes, was thought to educate the public as to the consequences of sinful behavior and to send a deterrent message to both the humiliated lawbreaker and others who might be tempted to stray from the strict tenets of colonial moral standards. Culprits could expect to be pelted with ridicule and insults as well as with sticks and stones. The more serious misdemeanants were sometimes nailed through their ears to the pillory, branded, and shaved bald.

Perpetrators in high-profile criminal cases often conceal their faces from the news media while being booked and processed, a practice that has become known as a “perp walk.” Once convicted, there is a trend toward subjecting offenders to a degree of public humiliation as part of their punishment.

<>

...