ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Dan Kahan’s enthusiasm for restorative justice should diminish once he realizes that restorative justice, once scrutinized carefully, is vulnerable to the same social meaning handicaps that accompany public shaming. Proposals advocating the use of alternative sanctions have attracted great attention in part because there are over 2.1 million people in state and federal prisons and jails. Frustrated by the apparent inability of the criminal justice system to reduce criminal populations at a reasonable cost, various scholars with different political agendas have pursued cheaper and more effective methods to reduce prison populations and recidivism. As one of the major proponents of shaming penalties, Professor Kahan appealed largely to the net benefits of shaming sanctions. The legal academy has benefited immensely from Kahan’s presence, in large measure because of the clever and provocative ways he is able to frame debate about important policy issues.
