Shame,Guilt, and Punishment

The emotions of shame and guilt have recently appeared in debates concerning legal punishment, in particular in the context of so called shaming and guilting penalties. The bulk of the discussion, however, has focussed on the justification of such penalties. The focus of this article is broader than that. My aim is to offer an analysis of the concept of legal punishment that sheds light on the possible connections between punishing practices such as shaming and guilting penalties, on the one hand, and emotions such as guilt, shame, and perhaps humiliation, on the other. I␣contend that this analysis enhances our understanding of the various theories of punishment that populate this part of criminal law theory and thereby sharpens the critical tools needed to assess them. My general conclusion is that, in different ways, all of the theories we encounter in this area can benefit from paying renewed attention to the nature of the connection between the state’s act of punishing and its expected or perceived emotional effect on the individual. OB, JD, KM, FT, CEB, KKJ, ASP, JS, AD, NE and the SNF x2.     

Shame Creeps Through Guilt and Feels Like Retribution

Law and Philosophy -     

Body Disposal Patterns of Sexual Murderers: Implications for Offender Profiling

Offender profiling postulates that crime scene behavior should predict certain offender characteristics. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between offender characteristics, situational factors, and body disposal patterns. Sequential logistic regression analysis on a sample of 85 sexual murderers shows that those who were in a relationship at the time of the crime and who present organized psychological characteristics are more likely to move the victim’s body after the homicide. However, when the victim is older and a conflict with the offender occurred prior to the crime, the body is more likely to be left at the crime scene. Implications for offender profiling are discussed in light of the results.

Shame and Guilt and its Relation to Direct and Indirect Experience of Trauma in Adolescence,a Brief Report

Exposure to different kinds of traumatic events is common among adolescents. This brief report study examined whether shame proneness and guilt proneness were associated with direct and indirect experience of potentially traumatic events (PTEs). We investigated the relationship between gender, PTEs, shame, and guilt among adolescents (n?=?314, age?=?15–20 years). We hypothesized that shame proneness and guilt proneness would be associated with direct experience of interpersonal and sexual PTEs, that both direct and indirect experience of potentially traumatic sexual event/s would correlate with female gender, and that potentially traumatic direct and indirect interpersonal event/s would correlate with male gender. Shame was positively associated with having experienced direct sexual trauma and with female gender. Girls had more often experienced potentially traumatic direct sexual events and boys had more often experienced potentially traumatic direct interpersonal events. Indirect experiences of traumatic events were not related to either gender or shame. We conclude that the relation between shame, PTEs, and gender is complex with both types of traumas and gender interact with shame. This study found that shame and direct experience of sexual traumatic events were associated among adolescent girls. Gender and what type of traumatic events adolescents’ direct experience is most likely related but not gender and what type of indirect experienced trauma.

     

Remorse, Reform and the Real World: Reply to Lippke

This article replies to some of Richard Lippke’s criticisms of my earlier article on the issue of whether remorse should mitigate sentence. I query whether remorse-based mitigation must always wait for signs of moral reform, and re-affirm that remorse is worthy of recognition in itself and not just for the moral reform it may bring. I also argue that, where delayed mitigation is appropriate, the task of ascertaining moral reform is not as dubious, practically or in principle, as Lippke maintains. I then confirm that my defence of the principle that remorse should mitigate sentence is not necessarily a defence of current practice.     

Criminal Law Guilt and Ontological Guilt: A Heideggerian Perspective

Law and Critique - The paper deals with the notion of guilt according to Heidegger’s philosophy and its repercussions for the understanding of guilt according to criminal law doctrine and...     

Restorative Justice, Shame and Forgiveness

Restorative conferencing is a new style of criminal justice intervention which is being increasingly used in Britain, especially as a method of delivering police cautions to youth offenders.Is is currently the subject of a lively debate, focusing on its effectiveness as a method of crime reduction, its benefits tovictims, its feasibility in modern society, its effect upon procedural rights of arrestees, and the danger of it becoming a degradation ceremony. This paper seeks to extend the debate to include less obvious, but equally important, issues. The paper focuses on the processes of reintegrative shaming which, inspired by the work of John Braithwaite, are at the core of restorative conferencing. It places these processes in broader historical and cultural contexts, such as the re-emergence ofshame sanctions in the USA, the attack on the notion ofshame launched by cultural radicals, and the changes which have occurred historically in our emotional response to offenders.Three sets of questions emerge: What is the political –as distinct from penal – meaning of the practice of shaming offenders? How does the practice affect the progressive cultural aim of fuller realization of the individual? At what point doesforgiveness become less of a virtue, more of a vice?     

“正犯主犯化”:趋势、原因及启示

主犯与正犯分别处于我国和德日刑法共同犯罪人的核心地位,有必要明确二者的关系。在德日刑法史上,正犯的内涵经历了主观说、形式客观说和实质客观说的演变。随着重要作用说和犯罪事实支配理论成为学界通说,正犯的认定标准倒向了实质客观说。德日刑法中的正犯与我国刑法中主犯的界限日益模糊,呈现出正犯主犯化趋势。该趋势的形成与哲学思潮由自然(实证)主义向新康德主义的转变有关;在刑法领域,该思潮的转向主要通过把刑罚的合目的性引入到犯罪论的方法,以化解犯罪论与刑罚论的冲突和消弭李斯特鸿沟。正犯主犯化趋势对我国共同犯罪的研究具有重要启示:一方面,不能以德日刑法中的正犯、共犯概念代替主犯、从犯的规范用语;另一方面,不能割裂定罪与量刑的关系,引进所谓的双层区分制。对于外国刑法理论,应该在明确该理论产生的社会背景和发展动向的基础上,回归到中国的具体现实,结合具体问题分析我国刑法的优劣,再做出坚持还是借鉴的选择。     

Shame,anger, and conflict: Case study of emotional violence

This paper proposes a new theory and method for understanding emotional violence: conflict results from threats to the social bond. Protracted conflict may be a result of social-emotional separation and unacknowledged shame. A single case is used to analyze the dynamics of marital conflict. Discourse is analyzed during an actual quarrel; sequences of emotion are traced prior to moments of escalation. The results indicate that not only did anger occur during conflict, but also it was preceded by unacknowledged shame. Sequences within and between spouses alternated from emotional separation and shame, to anger, to disrespect, to further separation and shame, and so on. Interaction in this couple was marked by alienation rather than solidarity.     

Hyperbolic Time Discounting, Offender Time Preferences and Deterrence

Objectives

This study examines the phenomena of intertemporal decision making??decisions involving costs and benefits that occur at different points in time. Two models of intertemporal time discounting are the exponential and hyperbolic models. Previous work in behavioral economics and psychology is relied on to make the case that the discounting of delayed outcomes (both gains and losses) may be hyperbolic rather than exponential.

Methods

Data were collected from 478 university undergraduate students who responded to a hypothetical scenario involving drunk driving. The potential gains and losses of drunk driving were delayed at five different intervals from ??tonight?? to ??10?years from now??, respondents were also asked to provide estimates of both the risk they would get caught if they did drink and drive and the probability that they would drink and drive under the conditions described in the scenario.

Results

Our results imply that individuals have hyperbolic time preferences for both rewards and gains, and that??unlike severity, the effect of which may be muted by risk??these discount functions appear to be operating independently of changes in the risk certainty of detection. Consistent with hyperbolic discounting, for example, when the benefit of drinking and driving was delayed by 1?week the self-reported intention to drink and drive increased by nearly 10%, however, when the gain was delayed by one month, intentions to drink and drive increased by only 4%. A smaller effect was found for delayed costs.

Conclusions

Avenues for additional research include the possibility of negative discount rates and the implications of persons?? awareness of their discount rates.     

Shame on you,John! Laws,stigmatization, and the demand for sex

The present article contributes to the literature on prostitution by shedding light on the effects of the criminalization of buying sex on the amount of prostitution bought, as well as on the proposed theoretical mechanisms underlying this change. We find indications that criminalizing the buying of sex may decrease the quantity of sex bought. While we find that stigma influences the demand for sex, we do not find that stigma increases as a result of the law. Therefore, the possible reduced quantity of sex bought is probably due to the more direct risk of getting caught.