NCJ Number
170525
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 44 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1998) Pages: 277-294
Date Published
1998
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article analyzes and critiques the recent use of judicial shame penalties.
Abstract
Shame penalties are designed to satisfy a retributive impulse; they communicate and enforce normative, as opposed to legal, standards. The power of the sanction is found in the threat of social exclusion. The article identifies three classes of shame penalties: public exposure, debasement, and apology penalties. Critique of the penalties focuses on the risk of stigmatization and exclusion, the structural preconditions for offender reintegration, and the potentiality of using shame sanctions in an individualistic society. The current uses of shaming have been a disorganized and often spontaneous generation of creative strategies to ameliorate the pressures on an overtaxed and underachieving criminal justice system. The ultimate success of shaming applications will likely turn on: (1) how well they restore legitimacy to the criminal justice system; (2) whether they reaffirm the moral order and thus serve as a symbolically viable alternative to incarceration; (3) identifying the kinds of offenders deterred by social disapproval and threatened status loss; and (4) determining whether shame penalties stigmatize and disgrace or offer opportunities for moral and social reintegration, ultimately increasing an offender's stake in the community. Note, references