Reintegrative Shaming, Republicanism, and Policy (From Crime and Public Policy: Putting Theory to Work, P 191-205, 1995, Hugh D Barlow, ed. - See NCJ-163416)

• NCJ Number: 163427
• Author(s): J Braithwaite
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: Westview Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

The theory of reintegrative shaming is examined with respect to its implications for the explanation of crime, its relationship to republican political theory, and its application to crime prevention.

Abstract

The central idea of reintegrative shaming they is that some societies have higher crime rates than others because their citizens less effectively shame criminal behavior. Reintegrative shaming involves disapproval while sustaining a relationship of respect, ceremonies to certify deviance terminated by ceremonies to decertify deviance, disapproval of the evil deed without labeling the person as evil, and deviance not allowed to become a master status trait. Reintegrative shaming differs from stigmatization in crucial aspects. Reintegrative shaming theory is likely to be politically harmful unless combined with a normative theory of when it is right to apply it. Braithwaite and Pettit's republican theory of criminal justice describes the conditions under which shaming is right or wrong. This theory motivates communitarian rather than governmental solutions to crime problems. Forms of communitarianism that can focus moral energies and reduce crime in the automobile age are social movement politics and the individual-centered communitarianism of the New Zealand Maori idea of family group conferences. 39 references