ABSTRACT
Imposition of shame punishment can be traced back to the dawn of civilization. In its earliest forms, shame punishment was based on one’s essential attachment to society and civilization. Tribes, communities, and villages were essential to life. Beginning in the mid-1970s, trial judges began to reincorporate shame into their judicial arsenal. Sentences incorporating shame punishment have encountered varying degrees of acceptance at the appellate level. The practice of assigning shame-related punishment to offenders has continued to the present, with judges developing new methods of punishing criminals without having to send them to prison. In general, one can assume that people have an aversion toward the commission of crime. In contemporary society, there are more law-abiding people than criminals. “People comply with the law most of the time not through fear of punishment, or even fear of shaming, but because criminal behavior is simply abhorrent to them.”.
