With American jails increasing in occupancy and crime rising everywhere, the simple threat of being jailed as a punishment is obviously no longer as effective as it once was in deterring criminals. Let’s face the facts, after years of human rights activists campaigning for better treatment, they’ve won a prison that has become a resort. Prisoners get a roof over their head, a bed and free cable. In a way it’s a lot like living in a dorm on campus, except the jail cells are bigger.
It’s time to find a punishment that actually discourages criminals. Not just the repeat offenders either, but anyone thinking of committing a crime. One judge in Texas has starting dishing out his own brand of justice.
In early August, Harris County District Judge Ted Poe sentenced a drunk driver to have his $30,000 sports car to be emblazoned with four signs letting any passerby know that the 24-year-old behind the wheel got caught drinking and driving. The signs read “I Drank, I drove and now my life is a disaster.” Judge Poe’s specialty seems to be public humiliation as punishment, because this isn’t the first time he’s made an unusual ruling. A drunken driver was ordered to carry in his wallet pictures of the people he killed. A wife-beater had to apologize to his victim from the courthouse steps, with cameras rolling. A convicted auto thief was sent to jail and was required to hand over the keys of his Trans Am to a 75-year -old grandmother. The woman drove the car until her vehicle, stolen by the man, was recovered and repaired. Judge Poe sent a drunken driving offender to prison for 20 years and ordered that photos of the two victims be hung in the man’s prison cell.
The idea of public humiliation as punishment isn’t new, just forgotten. We were all forced to read “The Scarlet Letter” in Junior High ,right? This perhaps is why people claim the judge is using 17th century punishment in the 21st century. However, Poe cites the Biblical concept of restoration. “Jewish and Christian law teaches that if you do a crime, you get right with the victim.” Of course citing religious text as justification in making legal decisions makes people slightly uncomfortable, myself included.
In this case however Poe uses the Bible as inspiration — not as a law book keeping the separation of church and state intact.
One can’t help but wonder if public humiliation is “cruel and unusual” punishment? If you define “unusual” as not common, then there’s no argument that it is. Is it cruel? It’s not cruel to make people feel bad, for doing something bad, like committing a crime.
“The people I see (in my court room),” Poe said, “have too good a self-esteem, I want them to feel guilty about what they’ve done. I don’t want ’em to leave the courthouse having warm fuzzies inside.”
The most important question though is does it work? Poe once sentenced a shoplifter to wear a sign reading, “I stole from this store – don’t steal or this could be you” outside the K-mart from which he’d stolen. The store manager reported that during the week the man marched with his sign, no thefts occurred. Mothers brought their children to see the pacing criminal as an example. And the offender himself, who has since moved to another state, wrote to the judge to say the shaming, in the long run, was the best thing that ever happened to him.
According to the judge, he still calls to thank him. Right or wrong, the facts show that Judge Poe’s approach works: His court has the lowest recidivism (relapse into criminal behavior) rate in the country and he says he’s never seen the same criminal before his bench twice. Houston voters apparently like Poe’s tactics as well: they’ve re-elected him numerous times.
Shame-inspired punishments seem to be spreading everywhere these days. In Kansas City, Mo., there is a regular television show known as John TV, which features photographs of people arrested for crimes related to prostitution. In Arizona, bookings at the jail are taped and posted on the Internet for all to see. How many bars have you been into with a wall of shame containing all the fake ID’s that have been collected?
Humiliation as punishment won’t eliminate all crime and isn’t appropriate in every case. But if other judges nationwide followed Judge Ted Poe’s lead, we’d see less criminals residing in the Country Pen Resort and Spas on our tax-payer dollar.
