home

Tag: shaming

The Latest in Shaming Punishments

Leave it to Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to come up with yet another shaming punishment. Forcing male inmates to wear pink underwear, and putting teens on chain gangs to bury the dead wasn't enough. Now there's this:

Women inmates in Maricopa County have been on chain gangs since 1996.

Now, 15 of them will wear T-shirts that say "I was a drug addict" as they clean trash from a Phoenix street on Monday.

What's wrong with shaming punishments? Everything. Here's Jonathan Turley in a terrific op-ed on the subject.

As I wrote here,

There are other alternative sentencing solutions out there that should be tried, and if they are lacking, then judges should spend their creative energy coming up with better ones that don't demean and further alienate the offender.

(8 comments) Permalink :: Comments