Public Humiliation In The Scarlet Letter

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Public Humiliation as Punishment: Psychological and Social Impacts
In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character ensures public shaming as punishment for adultery. In the modern world, judges use public humiliation as a form of criminal punishment. Judges should never sentence offenders to public shaming as a type of disciplinary action.
Courts should never use public shaming as punishment due to the psychological effects it has on criminals forced to participate. These acts of humiliation become traumatic psychological events, and significantly alter a person 's psyche. The act of public humiliation causes the person to “become withdrawn, depressed, or even angry” (Ziel 511), rather than rehabilitating said criminal
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Common belief is that public shaming helps reduce criminal conduct, but instead, it increases it. Popular belief is that criminal conduct decreases with the aid of public shaming because the person who undergoes the punishment becomes an example of what would happen if someone else were to commit said crime. In certain communities, people look up to the criminals instead of looking down on them. The public humiliation is not punishment. Instead, it is a reward. Forcing someone to hold up a sign is seen as a badge of honor in numerous communities. Also, public shaming can lead to riots. If a community decides to rally and riot against a person who commits a crime, it can lead to more criminal conduct than before. The rioting and rallying cause more problems for the police than if the criminal did not execute the punishment. Riots not only occur but also so does the common criminal behavior. Instead of a decrease in crime, which is the popular belief, it increases criminal behavior which “actually increases crime” (Braithwaite 270). Riots and criminal conduct are not the only side effects of public humiliation. Harassment and vandalism towards the original perpetrator of the crime have been known to occur. The punishment of the offense does not stop after the court ruling. Their public shaming follows them around for the rest of their life. People who hold up a sign as …show more content…
The criminal’s punishment not only affects him but their entire family. Other children bully their kids because of their parents; wives undergo insults, and husbands have so much shame that they do not even leave the house. How is it fair to punish people who have no affiliation with a crime? Why should a kid be afraid to arrive at school because of who his father is? While certain crimes have many of these effects even without public humiliation, a large percentage of these results have a direct relation to the punishment of public humiliation. Not only does the criminal’s family feel effects, but it also affects their friends. If a person is known to hang out with a drug dealer, would people assume that he did drugs as well? This example is what happens to the people that are friends with the criminal offender. Even though they may have had no affiliation with the crime, they still seem guilty in the eyes of the public. The friends of the perpetrator undergo harassment and ridicule from the public. Forcing someone to hold a sign is not just punishment toward them. Their punishment affects everyone that is close to them. This disciplinary action affects their friends, their spouse, and their kids. With a punishment that is so open to the public, so much damage is “done to people innocent of [the] crime…” (Ziel

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