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NAM Round Table
The NAM Round Table consists of news, insights, visions, ramblings and rants from the writers at New America Media.
[ filed under: youth philosophy ] 
What is the nature of punishment? Believe it or not, I began ruminating on this question — one that is hardly ever asked in this country — while looking at a Dennis The Menace cartoon in yesterday’s newspaper. Dennis was in his familiar place in the corner facing the wall, a baseball bat, ball and mitt at his feet. He is saying, “Baseball players are sent to the showers… not the corner!” One can imagine the defiant anger in his voice as he laments his victimhood… Even at age six, when sent to the corner, Dennis becomes a victim in his own mind. “She did this to me,” his child’s mind thinks about his mother and temporary jailer. There is no hint of the “crime” that sent him to house arrest, except for the likelihood that it was related to that bat and ball. And, as amused as we are at his observation, we also recognize his sense of being the victim, and we feel his pain. But, without the critical connection between cause and effect, what purpose does his punishment serve? And how do we define it? How do we distinguish between the immediate reaction to behavior we want to correct – that literal slap on the wrist when a child is found with his or her hand in the cookie jar, or the pain one feels when touching a hot stove — and the more deliberately thought-out consequences that are stretched out over time, often involving formal and time-consuming processes before they can be implemented? Our notions of right and wrong, of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, are conditioned by those instant responses to the choices we make. In those situations, it is impossible to escape personal responsibility. The nexus between what we did and the response is much too close to permit our minds to justify our acts or to lay responsibility on the shoulders of others. Formal “punishment,” on the other hand, is a time-consuming process (whether we’re talking hours or years), which allows just such rationalizations to occur, rationalizations which undermine its very purpose — or, at least, the purpose we want to believe it accomplishes. Like Dennis standing in the corner, those we process through our formal system of punishment (for crime) are so far removed from the precipitating cause of the system’s response, they are easily able to recast themselves into the role of victims. And, indeed, they are not wrong. Now, stripped of power to do anything but respond to officials, they are subjected to the indignities that those with newly acquired power over their lives routinely subject them to. I spend hours every week conducting writing workshops in county juvenile halls where teenagers are routinely sent to “punish” them for selling drugs, for engaging in gang activities, and for carrying and using guns. And yet, though they know they are there to be “punished,” when told what to do by staff every minute of the day (and often subjected to the arbitrary misuse of this corrupting power), these young “criminals” write almost exclusively about how they are victims of the system, about how they are “being played” — by the cops, by the courts, by the counselors, by “the system.” It’s a very rare individual who actually ponders the relationship between the specific acts leading to these long-term consequences and the degrading powerless position they now occupy. Even the ubiquitous “Do-the-crime, do-the-time” response is nothing more than a cliché that prompts no real sense of personal responsibility, the sine qua non of successful punishment, where success is defined as moderating future behavior. Perhaps it is this disconnect that leads to such astonishing rates of re-offending when it comes to California’s juvenile detainees. According to the California Division of Juvenile Justice, “70% of state-committed youth are re-arrested within two years of release.” (http://www.cjcj.org/pdf/CJJRPBrochure.pdf) The actual rate of recidivism must be even higher, since so many perpetrators escape detection and, therefore, punishment. No private company — indeed, no other government agency — could long survive with such rates of failure. Yet, we continue this failed structure of crime and punishment year after year after year. Which leads back to the original question inspired by that Dennis The Menace cartoon: What is the nature of punishment? If the system does not work to end or seriously curtail the behavior we claim we are trying to affect, then why do we keep doing it? The answer might have more to do with us, the punishers, than with the punished. Perhaps we derive some unacknowledged — even unconscious — satisfaction in the suffering of others. Or, perhaps it’s not their suffering we desire as much as the sense of control we gain from exerting official power over others. Maybe the motivation is even deeper, even more sinister, lodged in our reptilian brains, human traits we would rather not explore because they reveal more about us than we want to know. These are questions without answers, reflections on a topic that we seldom ponder. If we’re serious about creating a safer society, it’s way past time for such serious reflection. comments |
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I speak from the perspective of a simple Buddhist priest – over the years through working with my own children, students, prisoners and my fellow human beings I have learned that any form of punishment, be it corporal or psychological, is injurious, causes pain and is counterproductive.
Punishment involves the deliberate infliction of physical or emotional pain or injury – on a being – by another person or persons who exercise a “power over” dynamic toward that being. The deliberate infliction of pain on an individual in response to an action after it has occurred can in no way change the effect of the original action nor can it serve to educate or awaken the individual. The physical or emotional pain or injury of punishment done to a child or an adult creates only fear and trauma, it not only damages the person being punished but it damages and enslaves those who inflict the punishment. The abuse of physical violence visited on anyone is a deliberate act that scapegoats the person through the, often disconscious, release of an accumulated burden of internalized oppression.
The net result of any kind of punishment is repressed anger or internalized oppression, humiliation and degradation for both the giver and the receiver of the punishment. It is difficult indeed to really see the profound depth of this truth because we as individuals and collectively as a society live within an oppressive and coercive environment. Our vision is completely blocked to the truth by materialism in the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of our lives. Arrogance and aggression permeate our society, our history, our religious traditions, our so-called “judicial system” to the point that we can not see clearly enough to question the premise of punishment on a fundamental level. We live in a nation surrounded by violence, violence and the infliction of pain is almost worshiped in our entertainment, our “news” reporting and in our day-to-day interrelationships with each other. We fail to perceive that this is a legacy of hatred and oppression that we have inherited from our parents and they from theirs. We forget that our country was founded on the violent conquest and enslavement of indigenous peoples. Our “history” is presented in schools as “patriotic mythology” that hides the reality that our nation perpetrated the institution of racial slavery of African people for generations for the economic gain for people of privilege and wealth. We fail to perceive how our religious traditions have been used to justify the perpetration of genocide and slaughter on indigenous people in the name of “civilization.”
I submit that punishment is uncivilized and serves no purpose other than the perpetuation of oppression. – I was punished, therefore it is justifiable for me to punish another. I was spanked as a child – it did me no harm – therefore I can spank my children. However, deep introspection into our own experience reveals the painful and horrible truth. It is through the means of introspection and insight that we can begin to perceive our addiction to the assumption that punishment is an acceptable mode of behavior.
Each and every time we have ever been punished we have been socialized in punishment – we learn to modify our behavior in the presence of an oppressor who wields power over us out of fear. We internalize our oppression out of fear, denial and disconscious thought we carry the burden of external oppression within us. When our oppressor, the individual or group who punishes us, is no longer present, resentment often rises up in the mind, in time our internalized oppression builds into hatred for ourselves and for others. In the long run our internalized oppression, our internal rage and anger result in depression and social alienation, or, when externalized, the oppression of others. We, in effect, have learned to become an oppressor, we disconsciously pass on the cycle of violence to our families, our children and our society. Punishment, corporal or otherwise, no matter how it may be justified, is unacceptable and inexcusable, because it erodes the ability of people to see things with clarity and poisons the possibility for genuine healing.
Punishment inflicted on people for the purpose of influencing others, the alleged deterrent effect, is in actuality brutality by proxy, socialization in oppression through threat and fear. Deterrence is a myth maintained by people in positions of power out of ignorance and arrogance and perpetrated on people who are powerless. People do not consider penalties when involved in illegal activity, their only concern is “getting-over” on those in power – not getting caught – deterrence does not enter the picture.
The only truly effective and successful methods of dealing with correction of behavior come through compassionate communication, comprehension of social responsibility, education, restraint and discipline. Punishment simply does not, and has never, worked to bring about genuine changes in how people think and act.
By Rev. Kobutsu Malone · Posted on Jun 6, 02:16 PM