There's no evidence that creative sentences work better at deterring crime than other punishments. Yet public punishments can be harshest on the most commonly targeted and vulnerable group -- young people.
The recent penchant for customized punishments also undermines efforts to make criminal sentencing more uniform. Creative punishments often reflect the cultural character of a state. While an abusive father was given the choice of sleeping in a doghouse in Texas, domestic abusers were forced to attend meditation classes with herbal teas and scented candles in Santa Fe, N.M.
Turley concludes:
If states and Congress do not act, we may find ourselves with hundreds of Judge Browns imposing sitcom justice with real citizens as their walk-on characters. In the meantime, as shaming devices become commonplace and therefore less shameful, and as there are more people walking around wearing special signs, jurists will need to dream up new, more demeaning punishments to make an impression on defendants -- leaving both citizens and justice at risk.
The Supreme Court could help reverse this shameful trend with the Gementera case. Of course, even if it does, Judge Walker is unlikely to be seen standing outside the San Francisco courthouse wearing a sandwich board proclaiming "I Was Reversed by the Supreme Court" or "I Imposed Cruel and Unusual Punishment." In some ways, that's a real shame.
I don't like shaming punishments. The real shame of America is its prisons. TChris wrote about a particularly ridicuclous one here. I don't think this should be an either or all call - incarceration or shame. 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.
