Talking punishment: How victim perceptions of punishment change when they communicate with offenders

The myth that restorative justice is the opposite of retributive justice persists, despite a long history of rhetorical challenges. Only empirical evidence can advance the debate, so this article investigates the relationship between punishment and victim–offender communication from the victim’s perspective. Interviews with 40 victims of crime established that some victims saw victim–offender communication and punishment as alternatives, and others saw them as independent. However, more than half the participants expected that communicating with the offender would increase their satisfaction with the offender’s punishment or reported afterwards that this was in fact the case, suggesting that some victims fulfil punishment objectives through communication with the offender. The changes occurred when victims received information about the offender’s punishment, received feedback from the offender or used communication with the offender to impose a mild punishment of their own. Victims were not excessively punitive, but this study demonstrates the existence of an association between punishment and victim–offender communication from at least some victims’ perspectives. This article argues that we should not ignore or attempt to eliminate this relationship. Rather, acknowledging and examining the existence of punishment within victim–offender communication would improve practice and generate better outcomes for victims, offenders and society.

Repeated Multimarket Contact with Private Monitoring: A Belief-Free Approach

This paper studies repeated games where two players play multiple duopolistic games simultaneously (multimarket contact). A key assumption is that each player receives a noisy and private signal about the other's actions (private monitoring or observation errors). There has been no game-theoretic support that multimarket contact facilitates collusion or not, in the sense that more collusive equilibria in terms of per-market profits exist than those under a benchmark case of one market. An equilibrium candidate under the benchmark case is belief-free strategies. We are the first to construct a non-trivial class of strategies that exhibits the effect of multimarket contact from the perspectives of simplicity and mild punishment. Strategies must be simple because firms in a cartel must coordinate each other with no communication. Punishment must be mild to an extent that it does not hurt even the minimum required profits in the cartel. We thus focus on two-state automaton strategies such that the players are cooperative in at least one market even when he or she punishes a traitor. Furthermore, we identify an additional condition (partial indifference), under which the collusive equilibrium yields the optimal payoff.

STAN NIETRZEŹWOŚCI JAKO „AFEKT” W RZYMSKIM PRAWIE KARNYM?

Drunkenness – a “Passion” in Roman Criminal Law?SummarySince ancient times jurists and lawyers have had to handle offencesconnected with alcohol abuse. There are only three texts on drunkenness in the Roman legal sources: two relate to offences committed byinebriate soldiers, and the third contains the basic division into intentional offences, accidental offences, and crimes of passion. In all threecategories drunkenness was a mitigating factor, which may be surprising for modern lawyers. Other Roman sources present public opinionon drinking, which seems to have depended on the circumstances– heavy drinking and alcoholism were disapproved of. A precise analysis of the rhetorical writings shows elaborate distinctions betweenintentional and unintentional acts. Drunkenness was regarded as anemotional state which could influence the penalty, but the specific circumstances of the offence were crucial. The rhetorical works confirmthe views presented in poetry and philosophy. Contrary to the legalsources, the facts seem to show that a judge could sentence an offenderto a severe or mild punishment, or even acquit him if drunkenness hadbeen a factor contributing to the offence. The rhetorical works may beconsidered to provide not only an important theoretical background tothe legal sources, but also crucial supplementary information givinga better insight into Roman criminal law.

KEBIJAKSANAAN SYARI’AT ISLAM DALAM BERBUSANA ISLAMI SEBAGAI PEMENUHAN HAK-HAK ANAK PEREMPUAN

Dressing in unwelcome contemporary fashion to mistakenly conceal one’s identity in the name of beauty is one of the causal factors of moral degradation threatening our young generation. To establish their identity and charming personality, many young girls perform malfunction of what they should politely and proportionally wear for the sake of the latest mode and art although they have to break religious laws and teachings. To deal with this phenomenon, regions governed under Islamic law establish suitable fashion criteria and administer mild punishment to whoever violates the policy. Some opponents of the rule have voice protest against it, claiming that it violates women’s right to express their style through fashion. It is widely known that there are some ill-conceived policies stirring up violence against the human rights. However, some policies formulated by Islamic legal administers in Takengon, Central Aceh, have granted women the right to wear the fashion of their choice. Here, the author wants to impart the wisdom of Islamic law in setting down the rule on fashion and in giving young women their rights. The wisdom can act as guidance for lawmakers against the formulation of divisive policies violating human rights. The rule on Islamic fashion in this discussion is based on the Syafi’i teaching that women must cover up their entire body except for the face and the palms of the hands. The wisdom of the Islamic rule is that it reminds and urges young girls to confide in their parents to ensure that their existence as women is protected.

Spanking and Triage

There is not much about corporal punishment in this article, but I understand that Dr Chamberlin argues, by omission, that spanking is only a bit player in the complex interplay of risks that threaten the future development of a child. A concerned society will do what it can broadly to increase the information and practical support available to families, which might prevent a variety of problems created or exacerbated by upbringing and experiences in childhood. One question for this meeting is: would the American Academy of Pediatrics be contributing to this broad mandate for prevention with a statement that focuses on spanking or other mild punishment, or does attention to a small problem draw attention from big problems that urgently need action? I agree with Dr Chamberlin's argument for providing comprehensive services to all members of a community rather than targeting high-risk groups, except that I think his goals impractical given limitations on public funds for social services. How should we spend the small amount of public money available for the welfare of children? Five to eight percent of all children have a temperamental problem with aggression; some 80% of boys growing up in poor, marginalized neighborhoods in US inner cities will be arrested for a violent crime before age 18. These data do not describe the same problem. We have heard several references in presentations here to the exceptional violence of US society and reports of studies that relate spanking to criminal violence in adulthood. Our cities do not have a patent on violence, and children everywhere deserve protection from abuse.

Condemnation to the Mines in the Later Roman Empire

Lactantius, in his shrill polemical pamphlet De mortibus persecutorum, made the following observation while attacking his principal adversary, the emperor Galerius: “There was no mild punishment with him, not islands, not mines, not prisons; but fire, the cross, and wild beasts were daily and ready at hand.” More than a sign of the times, it is also a measure of his fury that Galerius could make exile, hard labor, and imprisonment seem to be lenient sentences. While one must resist succumbing immediately to credulity, one also must admit that even such hyperbole may have a kernel of truth in it. Lactantius probably assumed—as did many others—that the myriad adjustments to the complex relations between the church and the empire, which were in the process of being engineered by Constantine and his associates, would eliminate the need to inflict such punishments on Christians for religious reasons.

Elimination of Self-Injurious Behaviour in an Autistic Child by use of Overcorrection

Mild punishment, overcorrection and reinforcement of an alternative behaviour were used to reduce and eliminate the incidence of severe self-injurious behaviour in an autistic 12-year-old boy who had sustained major damage to his wrists and fingers. Data were collected over 10 × 30-minute periods per day and showed that banging and touching of a protective cast and later the injured hand itself were reduced to zero in approximately three weeks. The injury had healed and self-injurious behaviour was still extinguished at 10-month follow-up.

Mild ‘Punishment’ Works

There has been much written about the evils of corporal punishment, including two editorials in Pediatrics,1,2 yet the practice continues. The reason is that, quite simply, the procedure works. To choose an extreme example that I do not condone, if one gave an electric shock to a child every time he talked back, he would stop doing it. What then, is so wrong about corporal punishment? The authors mention the important points: the dangers of physical injury; teaching that might makes right; not teaching appropriate behavior, etc.

The Use of Mild Punishment in Combination with Reinforcement of Alternate Behaviors to Reduce the Self-Injurious Behavior of a Profoundly Retarded Individual

A procedure involving the response-contingent presentation of a mild aversive stimulus, reinforcement of alternative behaviors, and training for stimulus control was used to suppress self-injurious behavior of a profoundly retarded individual. This procedure, implemented by several people in varied settings throughout the entire school day, produced an immediate and substantial suppression effect in the training environments. Examination of school records and extensive staff interviewing indicates that the suppression effect generalized from the training environments to the hospital living area. In addition, it was durable in both the training and nontraining settings over an 8-month interval, although 20 months after treatment termination, a large portion of the generalized suppression effect in the nontraining environment was reversed. Possible explanations for this phenomenon are presented. These records and interviews also indicate that the inhibition factor of self-injurious responding was not associated with increases in existing stereotypic behavior or the development of new stereotypic behaviors. The public school personnel who conducted the program were completely trained in one school day without disruption to their normal activities.

Effects of Contingent Social Reinforcement with Delusional Chronic Schizophrenic Men

4 male, chronic schizophrenic inpatients were subjects in an experiment aimed at investigating whether contingent verbal reinforcement could decrease delusional verbalizations. The reinforcement connoted both approval and mild punishment, and two different schedules of reinforcement, fixed and variable ratios, were employed. A significant conditioning effect was observed, but neither fixed ratio nor variable ratio was successful in providing resistance to extinction. Results were discussed in the light of the immediacy hypothesis which suggests that immediate stimuli govern the behavior of schizophrenics.