Crime and Justice Silliness from USA Today

Surprised?

Today's USA Today argues in the context of criminal justice, "Shame works, so use it". The article later admits, "Its effectiveness hasn't been measured statistically, but anecdotal evidence gives a sense of its deterrent effect on wrongdoers susceptible to embarrassment." That's the "Readers Digest" style of analysis - a persistent preference for the anecdotal over the empirical.

USA Today's anecdotes include the following:

* Men who solicit prostitutes may find their names on Web sites or even billboards in several cities. La Mesa, Calif., noted a decline in street prostitution after "johns" were publicly named.

(You don't have to be very bright to realize that neither prostitites nor "johns" have disappeared from California - they are simply being more discreet or are choosing other venues.)

* Men who miss child-support payments had their photos displayed in Boston subways and on buses.

(But no claim is made that this had any effect on payment.)

* People convicted of drunken driving often have to display license plates announcing that fact.

(But no claim is made that fewer people are either arrested or convicted of drunk driving as a result.)

* A drug offender in Florida had to place an ad in the local newspaper: "I purchased drugs with my two kids in the car."

(But no claim is made that, even with this individual drug offender, that the "shaming" inspired a break from addiction.)

* Ten states post the names of tax delinquents on public Web sites.

(But no claim is made that the postings have inspired payment.)

* In cases of corporate wrongdoing, some judges have demanded that CEOs appear in open court to explain their companies' actions.

(But no claim is made that this has improved corporate conduct.)

Wow. What a compelling set of anecdotes.... (They could also have made note of sex offender lists, sometimes available over the Internet, again with no apparent impact on the rate of sex crimes.)

So we have an unsupported argument in favor of "shaming" - there is no empirical evidence that it works, the anecdotal "evidence" reflects only that it is sometimes used, but "it feels good". Similar arguments have been made in favor of public flogging.

But such arguments, in my opinion, are made by people who have no real clue what they are talking about. They need to spend a few weeks in a district court, watching arraignments, preliminary examinations, and plea hearings for misdemeanor cases. They need to see the rogues gallery of people, picked up the night before for a range of petty offenses, yukking it up in the jury box as they await their turn before the judge. They might note an occasional person who looks mortified, perhaps tearful, sitting among those people, desperately hoping not to be noticed. That person already feels shame. That's the type of person not likely to pay a return visit to the court. But that person is also very much the exception. The people sitting around him, for the most part, have been there before and will be there again.

Shame them? Get real. The street fashion of "baggy pants" emerged not from the "shame" of incarceration, but from a desire to emulate prison garb. In some circles, incarceration is a mark of manhood. Prison tattoos are not accidentally distinct - they are deliberately calculated to send the message to the ex-prisoner's peers "I was in prison" and in some cases "and I killed somebody while I was there".

And let's not forget - most crimes, even petty ones, are committed by people who know better, and don't want to face the existing penalties, but have no intention of being caught. Truly, who does USA Today believe will be affected by the petty type of "shaming" under discussion? Who, presently inclined to commit a crime, will decide, "Jail and a huge fine, even being on a county work crew picking up garbage along the highway, and having my name in the newspaper's "Police Beat", I can handle, but being on a website or having to wear an embarrassing sandwich board for eight hours? That's just too much."

And do I really have to comment on this?

Let the punishment fit the crime. The saying originated with Gilbert and Sullivan in The Mikado in 1885, but it's still stirring non-fictional creativity today.

That's right, folks... the first notion of lex talionis came from a comic opera in 1885....