The Journal of Primary Prevention, VoL 12, No. 3, 1992
Humiliation, Degradation and the Criminal Justice System J. S t e v e n S m i t h I
This paper takes a macro-systemic look at how humiliation l)crvades the criminal justice .system. KEY WORDS: Humiliation: criminal; jusliec.
INTRODUCTION
All societies seek order through a set of accepted rules for behavior. These develop through a series of understandings developed over time. They range from the simple conventions, folkways, of small groups, to the more formidable mores, and finally to the most important rules of behavior, laws. Laws are promulgated to enforce compliance of the populace. All rules of behavior carry with them sanctions, a cost to be extracted from the individual for failure or refusal to obey the accepted conventions of behavior. Sanctions are also found in varying degrees and arc based on the perceived severity of the offense. Accompanying any imposition of sanctions for the violation of social rules for behavior is a level of humiliation or degradation. The offender must come to understand that he/she has failed to follow the accepted behavioral expectations and they must COlne to realize the important value of behaving in an accepted manner. To impress the importance of proper behavior the rule enforcer, be it parent, official, or judge, pronounces a moral judgment on the behavior of the offending party. Such evaluations Ij. Steven Smith, Ph.D., is affiliatcd with Ball State University, Municc, IN. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Ball State University, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Munice, IN 47306. 209 9 1992 tluman Sciences Press, lnc,
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of behavior are often seen as indicators of the moral fabric of the individual and thereby we see the rule enforcer making a moral judgment of the person.
T I l E R A T I O N A L E FOR D E G R A D A T I O N
The dominant social values of modern America are drawn from the dominant cultural group which is white, Anglo-saxon, upper-middle class and male dominated. This social system places great value on the "traditional American values" of family, conservatism, respect for authority and accomplishment. It is a great concern for those who hold these wfiues that one commands the respect of others. One of the greatest fears of individuals who hold this value system is loss of respect and without a doubt, for these people to be humiliated at the hands of the powerful is a significant force in the promotion of proper or legal behavior. Flow can a "respectable" person stand to be ridiculed by others for committing a crime? For many in the dominant culture there is no greater fear. The dominant culture is brought into the courtroom by the judicial functionaries, the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney and the other staff of the court. To these people, and for the public at large, the fear of ridicule and humiliation are critical factors in determination of their exhibited behaviors. For the most part, these mcmbciIS of the upper/uppermiddle classes believe that the offender will be motivated by the same behavior controlling fears that they hold. O F F E N D E R S A R E N O T F O R T H E M O S T PART, M E M B E R S OF T I l E S A M E S O C I A L CI,ASSES! Offenders hold a different set of values. The offenders neutralize the degradation they receive from the court, which yields the humiliation dynamic ineffective at best and converts it to a rationale for further criminal activity at worst. Sykes and Matza (1957) identified the most prominent of the techniques of neutralization including: the denial of responsibility for the act: the denial of injury to the victim; the belief that the victim "had it coming;" the blaming of society because it made the act necessaiT; and finally, the appeal to a higher morality that justifies the criminal act.
TIlE RESEARCll ISSUES
This author began his career with the criminal justice system in the late 1960's, working with delinquent juveniles, pre-delinquent adolescents, and abused youth. These young people were "at risk" in many areas of
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their lives and all were clients (albeit in varying degrees) of the juvenile court. This early practitioner experience colored my graduate studies; I became involved in the study of the processing of both adult and juvenile offenders. I found that humiliation and degradation, though largely ignored in the scientific literature (with the exception of Goffman, 1963), were key elements in the strategies for official intervention. The justice system, be it the juvenile justice system or the criminal (adult) justice system, employs humiliation extensively. This work will review the various aspects of humiliation within the justice system and will explore how humiliation is employed as a motivator/controller of human behavior. This work is grounded in the 20 years of personal experience of the author and over a decade of academic study.
T I l E IllSTORY OF I l U M I L I A T I O N WITHIN T I l E C R I M I N A L J U S T I C E SYSTEM The offender faces the societal leaders as a pcrson undone. The society expects remorse for the offense committed. This has not changed for thousands of years. Offenders were publicly shanled and were expected to abide by the decree of the appropriate official. It has long been an accepted belief that individuals should feel some degree of shame when facing those who were offended against. Earliest accounts of societal reactions to offending behavio, indicate that societies were prone to banish offenders from their communities. A decree was issued by the king and the offending party was exiled (outlawry) to the great shame of both him/herself and the family. Shame, humiliation and degradation are clearly evident in many of the early punishment practices. The stocks, the pillory and the ducking stool were instruments designed to maximize the humiliation of the offender. These instruments were usually placed in the town square or some other prominent place within the community so that the large crowds could witness the imposition of the punishment. Additional punishments were almost solely designed to degrade and humiliate the offender including branding, mutilation, and the wearing of certain garments or signs in public for specified periods of time. An adulteress was often forced to wear a Scarlet "A" or a thief had the back of the right hand branded so that all who came in contact with the offender would know the kind of person they were dealing with. Such practices were clearly designed to humiliate and degrade the offender and probably only further encouraged illegal behavior because the public was reluctant to allow the offender back in the mainstream of the society.
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Bad people do had things. If bad people did good things they would be good people, so we come to define the person based on the behaviors exhibited and the moral evaluation of those behaviors. It is in this context that we find the humiliation/degradation dynamic. Without question the forums for the inore serious pronouncements of morality are the criminal court and the juvenile justice system.
TIlE FEAR OF llUMILIATION Criminologists have noted the impact of tile dynamics of social groups on crime causation and punishment. There are many theories which note that criminal behavior, particularly delinquency, is related to the offender's social group (Sutherland's DiffErential Association Theory, Hirschi's Social Control Theory, and the gang studies of Thrasher and Cohen). Each of these criminological propositions focuses on the social nature of human behavior and though most do not explicitly deal with humiliation, it can be postulated that the fear of social sanctions in the form of loss of status or fear of humiliation by tile group is a key motivator in the felt power of the social group. Without a fear of humiliation the individual would be much less likely to follow the social rules of a deviant group. The attachments that a youth develops [)lay a critical role in establishing the rules for behavior. The strength of these attachments is often related to the fear of humiliation if the individual fails to live up to the expectation imposed by the group. Clearly, the same process is operational be the social group a law abiding group or a law violating group.
ItUMILIATION AND T I | E POLICE The Arrest Police officers are trained to apprehend law breakers and they are proud of themselves when they are successful at their task. Their enthusiasm often times includes an opportunity to humiliate the accused offender. An example is in order: About three years ago, I was wozking late on a Friday and entered the main offices of our department to leave some papers for the secretary for the following Monday. As I entered the office I heard a noise from the Chair's adjoining office. 1 left the office, returned to my own and called campus security. Two officers responded and with revolvers drawn they entered the offices, with this author in close pursuit. The officers found the
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suspect, a student, in short order and placed him in handcuffs and set him, with some authority, in a straight backed chair. The young man was emotionally shaken and was trembling. He sat in the chair looking at the floor. The y o u n g officer who was no older than the suspect held the following conversation: " W h a t ' s going to happen to m e ? " asked the young man after the ofricers removed the five examinations he had in his pockets. With a wide grin the officer responded: " Y o u are going away for a very long time, kid." "I can't be sent to prison for this, can I?" "Listen kid, you are guilty of a Class C Felony, Burglary of a Business. That will get you five years in prison. You are going away for a long time and young cute guys like you will have plenty of boyfliends in the joint. Y o u better pucker up sweety. Ain't that right?" looking at his fellow officer. "Yep, this boy is in real trouble. What prompted you to do such a stupid thing anyway'?" responded the second officer. " Y o u aren't very bright are you, college boy'?" T h e officers were thrilled to finally get a chance to a p p r e h e n d a "real" criminal and they were taking advantage of their power and tile powerlessness of the offender to have a "little fun" at the offender's expense. This act of humiliation was within the understood bounds of acceptable behavior and can be viewed as an emotional outlet on many fronts. First, the officers spend most of their time on routine matters, such as patrol, loud parties and crowd control. They are facing a rather unique event and they are enjoying an opportunity to vent their anger at a lawbreaker who is clearly an offender and one who is not in a social position to retaliate. Secondly, when the officers encounter those who are inebriated they are unable to impress on them the severity of their offense and are usually not able to hold a conversation with the offender. These situations result in the officers being frustrated that they are not able to tell the offender how they feel about the offender's behavior. Thirdly, police are not held in high regard by the society as a whole and there is a resultant sense of inferiority or at least perceived inferiority that is found in the social group of the police. The officers are reluctant to even tell strangers what they do for a living. [It is standard for police officers in my classes to ask me not to tell the class their occupation because they fear that the class will ostracize them.] T h e opportunity for a police officer to capture a "real" felon is a cause for celebration and the humiliation of the suspect is simply a manifestation of the frustrations brought about by low status. This is a way for a police officer to state "I am s o m e b o d y . . . a real police officer,"
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There are clear legal safeguards for police behavior but the act of being placed under arrest and taken inte eu:;tody is at base a humiliating experience.
tlUMIL1ATION AND TIlE COURTS Degradation Ceremonies
Durkheim (1950) proposed that immorality and crime were nccessaly parts of society, lle noted that the prcser~ce of "bad" peoplc is a monumentally effective v,,ay to assure th,it the "good" people band togcthui-. Thc presence of the " b a d " reinforces the commonly held rules for "good" behavior. Indeed, it has been proposed that "good" behavior cannot exist without "bad" behavior (Douglas, 1970). The social group must become aware of the "bad" behavior arid must come to understand that there was ,m official p r o n o u n c e m e n t of shame upon the offending party (Garfinkel, 1956). This degradation ceremony is the Sentencing or I)ispositional |tearing. The decision has been made rind we have proverl beyond a reasonable doubt that this person has violated our most powerful rules, the law. At the sentencing, the accused stands alone in front of "'the bench," an imposing structure of the finest wood (the paneling alone for a small courthouse will cost $500,000), and is told of the punishment that society will demand for the offense COlnmitted.
Judges as llumiliators
Judges and prosecutors and legislators are designated by the society, to be "moral entrepreneurs" (Becker, 1973). +File .judge is charged by, the society to sit in jtidgment of citizens' behavior. The prosecutor seeks to respond to the feelings of the public and appease the most vocal critics, while the legislators seek to win re-election by playing to the public's fcar of crime. The judges pronounce people good or bad anti when a pronouncement of "'bgid" is seen as necessai T the judge expresses the outrage of the " g o o d " p e o p l e in what has been called a c e r e m o n y of d e g r a d a t i o n (Garfinkel, 1956). I r e m e m b e r one judge in a major southwestern city who was attempting to explain to two young offenders what he was doing and his rationale
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for placing these two brothers, ages 7 and 9, on probation. The judge explained: Boys, I am placing you tm p r o b a t i o n because you arc dclinqucnI. That m e a n s that you arc BAD. You havc b r o k e n the law and you illtlSl |'~c punished. All of us expect you to bc good but sincc you chose to bc B A D 1 am assigning Ms. R o b c r t s o n to kce t) an eye on you in case you do anything clsc that is bad. I expect you h} bc good from now on, but in case you kccp being bad, Ms. R o b c r t s o n will loll me and you will be p u n i s h e d more severely next lhnc.
The judge in this case performed a degradation c e r e m o n y and, on behalf of the society, humiliated the offending juveniles. Such judicial behavior is cominon in both the juvenile courts as well ;is the criminal (adult) courts.
,ludges often take this time to berate the offender, and to make it clear to all of society that "'We the people" are not willing to accept an apology but we d e m a n d vengeance/retribution. This humiliation is part of the reaffirmation or the behavioral rules held by the society. Even minor offenses carry a certain degree of humiliation delivered by the judge, as a representative of the society. A judge, after hearing my statement regarding a minor traffic citation, responded with the following warning: "Mr. Smith, I shall have you post a $35.00 bond and if3'ou call l,ccp your m~.~c clean and stay ~mt o f trouble with the Am' for 45 days, it will be returned to you. Do you think you can do that Mr. Smith?" Even nay traffic citation required a certain level of humiliation to assure that I remained a law abiding citizen. The major work to identify the properties of degradation have been identified (Garfinkel, 1956), but have rarely been applied to the court setting. The court clearly meets the identified criteria: 1. Both event and perpetrator must be relnoved from the reahn of their everyday character and be made to stand as "out of the ordinary." The court considers the accused as an object frozen in time. The court is interested in the person only as that person was found at the time of the offense. Additional personal characteristics are usually considered irrelevant and refused as evidence. 2. The d e n o u n c e r must identify him/herself in a public rolc not a private one. The judge (denouncer) must be acting in the capacity of a public figure and must make p r o n o u n c e m e n t s on behalf of the public not the judge's personal beliefs or values. 3. The d e n o u n c e r must p r o n o u n c e judgment in the name of the tribe or social group. Judges are elected or appointed to act on behalf of the citizenry, and the case is brought by a prosecutor that functions as a representative of the people, the State.
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4. The denouncer must be seen to uphold these ultimate values (i.e. the Law). The selections criteria for the judiciary focus on the ability of the judge to uphold the law. The refusal of the Congress to consent to the appointment of Judge Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court is an example of the importance we place on this requirement. The Congress felt that Judge Bork would not uphold the law and might place his personal views ahead of it, so his appointment was denied. 5. The denouncer must distance him/herself from the denounced person. The court and the various persons who work in the court view the person as a case not an individual. The courts are to be impartial arbiters of justice and they are forbidden to involve themselves in the life of the accused outside of the specific allegations before the court. The outcome of the presenting case should be consistent with the decisions made in other like cases previously, the Doctrine of Stare Decisis. 6. Finally, the denounced person must be made strange, placed outside the legitimate order. This offender is at odds with ordered or lawful society and this must be made clear in the degradation ceremony. " T h e c o u r t a n d its o f f i c e r s h a v e s o m e t h i n g like a fair m o n o p o l y o v e r s u c h c e r e m o n i e s , a n d t h e r e t h e y h a v e b e c o m e o c c u p a t i o n a l r o u t i n c . " E l s c w h c r c in I h c a r t i c l e t h e c o u r l is r e f e r r e d to as " . . . o u r p r o f e s s i o n a l d e g r a d e r s in t h e law c o u r t s . . . " ( G a r f i n k c l , 1956:211).
H U M I L I A T I O N AND C O R R E C T I O N S The Pains of Imprisonment Gresham Sykes (1958) studied the maximum security prison in New Jersey and reported on the facets of prison life which impose the greatest pain on the inmate. He proposed that there were five characteristics of prison life which were the basis for the "pain of imprisonment." The The The The The
Deprivation Deprivation Deprivation Deprivation Deprivation
of of of of of
Autonomy Liberty Heterosexual Contact Safety Goods and Services
The loss of these personal rights is always painful but a key factor in the determination of the level of pain experienced is the degree to which the inmate comes to perceive of "self" as degraded. There is a link between the ability of the individual to psychologically address the loss of these particular items and the degree to which the inmate feels a sense of
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humiliation and shame. As has been mentioned, there seems to be an either/or proposition to the humiliation/degradation received by offenders at the hands of the officials of the society. Either an offender will internalize the humiliation and accept the shame showered upon him/her, resulting in a loss of self-worth and selfesteem, or the offender will seek to neutralize the degradation and shame by applying certain techniques which will tend to justify the offending behavior. In either case, the result is a greater likelihood that the offender will again offend against the society. Prison life is a prolonged period of hunliliation. It seems that there are several variations of the humiliation dynamic which are carried out through the experience of prison life. First, there is prison itself, the rejection by society. Secondly, there is the loss of autononly and the humiliation of being denied the opportunity to make even the simplest of personal choices. Finally, there is the humiliation of the interaction between the kept and the keepers. Being rejected by the society and segregated from the life of the community is a humiliating experience. The society has stated that the offender is unfit to live with others. The offender cannot be trusted to behave properly and has been told in official terms, that society demands he/she be caged and controlled. The prison sentence is a statement to the offender that the society has rejected the person and has found that this person is incompetent to handle even the simplest of decisions. "This shows what prison has d o n e to us," E u g e n e m o a n e d . "It's m a d e us craven. Lock m e n up. C o u n t them. Crucify them body and soul. Scorn them and distrust them. A n d what do you get'? You get a convict; a man who's conic to scorn hhllself and his c o m r a d e s , to distrust himself and cvep:,body else. t t c r c wc ;ire a lot of brave men. Yes, we ;ire brave. We'll risk death fl~r liberty. But we haven't goI the guts to s t a n d up and put o u r case straight. O u r m a n h o o d ' s gone. T h a t ' s what h a p p e n e d . Just ;is if they'd filed it away with our finger prints. T h e r e ' s nothing [eft of us but a body fighting for its existence. - - " O h , I could b e a r being heartbroken{ But il's being spirit-broken lhal's killing hie." ( E u g e n e and B e r n a r d d i s c u s s i n g their recent p h i c c m c n t as trustees on Devil's Island. Excerpt from Nilcs, 1~28:173)
The inability of the offender to make even the simplest of decisions is a constant source of humiliation for the offender. The offender is called upon to obey all commands and his/her life is controlled even to the minutia of daily life. Clearly, one of the major problems of inmates is irresponsibility. If irresponsibility is the problem, then the society "should make them accountable. Locking up a Slob makes them irresponsible and society becomes totally accountable for every aspect of their lives. We totally take over their obligations . . . . We make freeloaders out of a freeloader." (Chaleen, 1986:59)
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THE 1990's: MOVING AWAY FROM HUMILIATION? New Ideas
As our society presses on into the 1990's, there are trends within the practice of criminal justice that are, on the one hand, disturbing but, on the other, there are indications that there will be some dramatic changes particularly in the corrections profession. On the darker side, most criminologists predict that there will continue to be a push by elected officials to "get tough" on crime. In April and September, 1989, President Bush announced his multibillion dollar program to stop drug abuse in this country by getting tough with drug users and dealers. He called for longer mandatory sentences for drug users and dealers, the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer in connection with drugs, and he added prison beds, federal prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel. For the short run, we are looking at the continuation of the trend toward a more punitive response to crime and criminal offenders. The federal government has established sentencing guidelines which effectively end parole and many aftercare programs, leaving offenders at risk upon release from prison. In Indiana, a bill to castrate rapists was genuinely considered in the 1989 legislative session. Inmates are released from prison with one set of second-hand clothes, $75.00, and a 9(1 day reorientation program at the Salvation Army. The stigma of being an ex-con and the humiliation of applying for jobs with outdated skills, and a hole in your work history that must be explained to each potential employer combine to continuously humiliate the recently released inmate. This continuing humiliation contributes to the recidivism (prison return) rate, which is currently about 75%. The prevailing belief is that all offenders are violent, some even subhuman or innately evil (Colson, 1980). This popular myth is untrue. In reality, only 30.5 per cent of admitted offenders during 1983 committed a violent crime. This was down from 37.2 per cent in 1982 (Camp and Camp, 1984). The belief that offenders are dangerous and violent means that we as a society imprison more people than any modern industrialized nation. There is no reason to believe that this trend toward more punishment and humiliation will be abated in the near future. There are however, some interesting new programs and services in the offing and some of these programs are demonstrating encouraging results in the reduction of criminal behaviors based, at least in part, on a reduction of humiliation and degradation. The first is the Menninger Foundation's C H A R L E E Family Care Program and the second is Prison
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Fellowship, Inc. Both of these programs develop a caring, supportive environment for the offender and both spend a great deal of time dealing with the offender in ways which reduce the humiliation and degradation. [I know about both of these programs first hand, and have had the opportunity to observe them closely.]
CHARLEE The Menninger Foundation's C H A R L E E Family Care operates in several states and is patterned after The Villages, a 2{) year old program in Topeka, Kansas. There are several unique characteristics of the C H A R L E E (Children Have All Rights, Legal, Educational and Emotional) program. The overarching concern is to establish a "normal" family setting and to encourage "normal" family interaction. This concept sets it apart from all the other "family-milieu" programs. C H A R L E E places homes in neighborhoods, hires married couples as house parents whose primary residence is the group home, focuses the program supports on the house parents not the child and mixes residents of each house based on age, sex, and type of problems. By placing a home in a neighborhood setting, C H A R L E E assures that the youth interact with other youth who are outside the purview of the juvenile court. The placed youth finds that other youth in the neighborhood become friendly and the youth have the opportunity to develop non-delinquent peer groups. Most other programs avoid the difficult development issues encountered when attempting to gain entry into a residential neighborhood and place youth service agencies in the rural areas thereby prohibiting the youth from associations with youth who have not been placed by the court. One young lady (14 years old) was an abused, neglected, predelinquent. She would regularly (every other Friday afternoon) become an incredibly nasty and ill-tempered person. She would be impossible to deal with and would press the house parents until she was grounded to her room for the evening. It was perplexing to the staff because on these Friday evenings the family would dress up and go to a "nice" restaurant and then out to the movies or a concert. This young lady (1'11 call her Alice) would spend Saturday mornings asking other kids what the movie was about, but would continue her sullen ways towards the house parents. The staff studied behavioral incident reports and the house mother finally said: "I think Alice is afraid of being humiliated by not knowing how to dress and act at the nicer places we go to eat."
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The house parents decided to have practice nights at home on the alternate Fridays. They had a new placement coming that week so they decided to say they wanted to practice for the new boy's benefit. Alice did not know how to walk in high heels, she had never been to a restaurant that had place settings and she did not know what to do with all of the extra forks, spoons and other such things. Fear of being humiliated generated anti-social behavior. The fear of humiliation was of critical importance in this case and without the provision for the youth to practice behaviors in the "'real" world they will be ill-equipped for re-entry from a correctional program. Humiliation or the fear of it is a motivator of behavior but the humiliation is dependent on the social mores (rules) of the prinlary social group to which the subject is attached.
Prison Fellowship Prison Fellowship is another correctional program which has effectively addressed the tmmiliation needs of offenders and in so doing has shown some remarkable results. Tile basic tenets of this program are theological in nature. Prison Fellowship is supported and indeed, was initiated by a group of concerned Christians. The involvement of Christians in tile reform of correctional policy and practice follows a long tradition dating back to the first prisons ill Pennsylvania. The Quakers developed tile Solitary System in the late 1700's in response to the English system which they felt was barbarous. Prison Fellowship has many different components, Justice Fellowship, Project Angel Tree, In-prison Seminars, Community Service Seminars, publications, and alternative sentencing services (Van Ness, 1986). Each of these programs is based on a theory best described as "restorative justice." The principles of Prison Fellowship are focused on the need to restore the victim, the offender, and tile community. One example of the restorative nature of the services is: Jerry was convicted of burglary and was scheduled to be sentenced. He was fortunate in that he had been able to obtain the assistance of Prison Fellowship's Alternative Sentencing Project. The volunteers sought to mediate between Jerry and his victim. All agreement was eventually reached wherein Jerry would provide free lawn care for the victim for a period 2 years while he served his time on probation. Prison Fellowship volunteers monitored Jerry's work. After a few months the victim's neighbors began to notice how nice the yard looked and asked the victim for the name of the service he used. The referrals came and Jerry became an entrepreneur. The victim
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will never pay for his yard service. Jerry is a taxpayer and provides employment for probationers and parolees. Clearly, the above example is a success story, but there are many programs for burglars throughout the country who require the offender make restitution to the victim. Almost all probation departments require offenders to make restitution whenever feasible but they don't have this kind of success story to tell. What makes Prison Fellowship unique? I propose that the differences have to do with the difference between retribution and restoration. Retribution is revenge. It is punishment. It is humiliating and often mean spirited. It inflicts punishment because the offender is "bad" and deserves to be punished. The offending party is seen as culpable and often incapable of making amends. Given this set of assumptions the offender is denounced and painful consequences are imposed to assure that tile offending behavior is not repeated (Walker, 198(1:24-35). Tile problem with this ever so popular notion of punishment is that it has been rarely shown to be effective at reducing future criminal behaviors (Walker, 1980:36). Restorative programs, on the other hand, focus on the worthiness of everyone involved in the event. The victim's needs are considered and addressed, while at the same time, the offender is viewed as a capable person who has the ability to restore the victim and thereby assuage the guilt of the offense and feel good about him/herself. By establishing that programs and services will be restorative in nature, Prison Fellowship has addressed the issues of humiliation.
SUMMARY AND CONCI,US1ONS It is clear that the climinal justice system is now and has always been organized to humiliate the offender and thereby reinforce the rules for acceptable behaviors. The hunliliation is inherent in the act of taking control of a person, but the continued humiliation of offenders is destructive, breeding self-doubt, self-abasement and further illegal behavior. To appropriately address this humiliation dynamic may indeed be a major innovation in correctional practice. There is no question that humiliation is an effective motivator of human behavior. Many people who find that they have made a mistake in judgment and are guilty of a crime will be ashamed of themselves and will cease the offending behavior quickly with very little necessity for official intervention. Unfortunately, these people are not the ones responsible for this nation's excessive crilne rates. These people realize their mistake,
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accept the blame, and take action to assure that the offense does not occur again. Our court dockets and prison beds are full to overflowing with people who cannot handle responsibility, cannot accept blame, and are either incapable of corrective action or choose not to take corrective action. These are the people that are such a challenge to our society and its criminal justice system. With this group, the use of humiliation will often increase misbehavior rather than decrease it. By humiliating these people the justice system further alienates the offender and quite unintentionally pushes the offender into further and often more serious criminal activity. It is imperative that the professionals who work with offenders understand the intended A N D unintended consequences of humiliation.
REFERENCES Beckcr, H. (1973). Ontsi~h'rs: Studies in the Sociolow of Devionce. New York City, NY. The Free Press. Camp, G. and Camp, C. (1984). The Corrections Yearhook. South Salem, NY. Criminal Justice Institute, Inc., pp. 12-13. Chaleen, D. (1986). Making it Right: A Common Sense Approach t o Criminal Justice. Aberdeen, SD. Melius and Peterson Publishing Corp. Cohen, A., kindesmith, A., Sehuessler (1956). The Sutherhmd Papers. Bloomington, IN. Indian University Press. Colson, C. (198(I). "Toward and Understanding of lmprisonnlenl and Rehabilitation," Crime and the Responsible Community. Stott J. and Miller N. eds. Grand Rapids. MI. Eerdmans Publishing, pp. 165-66. Doleschal, E. and Newton, A. (1981). "International Rates of Imprisonment," Hachcnsak, NJ. National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Douglas, J. (1970). Deviance and Re.spectability: The Social Construction of Moral Meanings. New York City, NY. Basic Books Inc. Durkheim, E. (195(t). Ruh.'s of the Sociological Method Catalin, G., ed. Glencoe, IL. The Free Press, pp. 65-73. Garfinkcl, H. (1956). "Conditions for Successful Degradation Ceremonies." The American Journal of Sociolow, LXI (Marcch, 1956), Chicago, Ik. University of Chicago Press, pp. 42(I-424. Reprinted in Manis and Mehzer (1967). Symbolic hm'raetion. Boston, MA. Allyn and Bacon, pp. 205-212. Goffman, E. (I963). STIGMA Notes on the Management of Spiled Identity, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice-Hall. Hirschi, T. (1969). The Causes of Delinquency, Berkeley, CA. University of Califl)rnia Press. Niles, B. (1928). Condemned t o Devil's Island. New York City, NY. Grosset and Dunlap Publishers. Sykes, G. (1958). The Soeie O, of Captives. New York Cily, NY. Atheniurn Publishing. Sykes, G. and Matza, D. (1957). "Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency," American Sociological Review 22 (December, 1957), Washington, D.C. American Sociological Association, pp. 664-670. Van Ness, D. (1986). CRIME A N D ITS VICTIMS l|qmt We can Do, Donners Grove, IL. lnterVarsity Press. Walker, N. (1980). Punishment, Danger and St~q,ma, The Morality of Criminal Justice, Totowa, NJ. Barnes and Noble Books.
Humiliation, Degradation and the Criminal Justice System J. S t e v e n S m i t h I
This paper takes a macro-systemic look at how humiliation l)crvades the criminal justice .system. KEY WORDS: Humiliation: criminal; jusliec.
INTRODUCTION
All societies seek order through a set of accepted rules for behavior. These develop through a series of understandings developed over time. They range from the simple conventions, folkways, of small groups, to the more formidable mores, and finally to the most important rules of behavior, laws. Laws are promulgated to enforce compliance of the populace. All rules of behavior carry with them sanctions, a cost to be extracted from the individual for failure or refusal to obey the accepted conventions of behavior. Sanctions are also found in varying degrees and arc based on the perceived severity of the offense. Accompanying any imposition of sanctions for the violation of social rules for behavior is a level of humiliation or degradation. The offender must come to understand that he/she has failed to follow the accepted behavioral expectations and they must COlne to realize the important value of behaving in an accepted manner. To impress the importance of proper behavior the rule enforcer, be it parent, official, or judge, pronounces a moral judgment on the behavior of the offending party. Such evaluations Ij. Steven Smith, Ph.D., is affiliatcd with Ball State University, Municc, IN. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Ball State University, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Munice, IN 47306. 209 9 1992 tluman Sciences Press, lnc,
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of behavior are often seen as indicators of the moral fabric of the individual and thereby we see the rule enforcer making a moral judgment of the person.
T I l E R A T I O N A L E FOR D E G R A D A T I O N
The dominant social values of modern America are drawn from the dominant cultural group which is white, Anglo-saxon, upper-middle class and male dominated. This social system places great value on the "traditional American values" of family, conservatism, respect for authority and accomplishment. It is a great concern for those who hold these wfiues that one commands the respect of others. One of the greatest fears of individuals who hold this value system is loss of respect and without a doubt, for these people to be humiliated at the hands of the powerful is a significant force in the promotion of proper or legal behavior. Flow can a "respectable" person stand to be ridiculed by others for committing a crime? For many in the dominant culture there is no greater fear. The dominant culture is brought into the courtroom by the judicial functionaries, the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney and the other staff of the court. To these people, and for the public at large, the fear of ridicule and humiliation are critical factors in determination of their exhibited behaviors. For the most part, these mcmbciIS of the upper/uppermiddle classes believe that the offender will be motivated by the same behavior controlling fears that they hold. O F F E N D E R S A R E N O T F O R T H E M O S T PART, M E M B E R S OF T I l E S A M E S O C I A L CI,ASSES! Offenders hold a different set of values. The offenders neutralize the degradation they receive from the court, which yields the humiliation dynamic ineffective at best and converts it to a rationale for further criminal activity at worst. Sykes and Matza (1957) identified the most prominent of the techniques of neutralization including: the denial of responsibility for the act: the denial of injury to the victim; the belief that the victim "had it coming;" the blaming of society because it made the act necessaiT; and finally, the appeal to a higher morality that justifies the criminal act.
TIlE RESEARCll ISSUES
This author began his career with the criminal justice system in the late 1960's, working with delinquent juveniles, pre-delinquent adolescents, and abused youth. These young people were "at risk" in many areas of
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their lives and all were clients (albeit in varying degrees) of the juvenile court. This early practitioner experience colored my graduate studies; I became involved in the study of the processing of both adult and juvenile offenders. I found that humiliation and degradation, though largely ignored in the scientific literature (with the exception of Goffman, 1963), were key elements in the strategies for official intervention. The justice system, be it the juvenile justice system or the criminal (adult) justice system, employs humiliation extensively. This work will review the various aspects of humiliation within the justice system and will explore how humiliation is employed as a motivator/controller of human behavior. This work is grounded in the 20 years of personal experience of the author and over a decade of academic study.
T I l E IllSTORY OF I l U M I L I A T I O N WITHIN T I l E C R I M I N A L J U S T I C E SYSTEM The offender faces the societal leaders as a pcrson undone. The society expects remorse for the offense committed. This has not changed for thousands of years. Offenders were publicly shanled and were expected to abide by the decree of the appropriate official. It has long been an accepted belief that individuals should feel some degree of shame when facing those who were offended against. Earliest accounts of societal reactions to offending behavio, indicate that societies were prone to banish offenders from their communities. A decree was issued by the king and the offending party was exiled (outlawry) to the great shame of both him/herself and the family. Shame, humiliation and degradation are clearly evident in many of the early punishment practices. The stocks, the pillory and the ducking stool were instruments designed to maximize the humiliation of the offender. These instruments were usually placed in the town square or some other prominent place within the community so that the large crowds could witness the imposition of the punishment. Additional punishments were almost solely designed to degrade and humiliate the offender including branding, mutilation, and the wearing of certain garments or signs in public for specified periods of time. An adulteress was often forced to wear a Scarlet "A" or a thief had the back of the right hand branded so that all who came in contact with the offender would know the kind of person they were dealing with. Such practices were clearly designed to humiliate and degrade the offender and probably only further encouraged illegal behavior because the public was reluctant to allow the offender back in the mainstream of the society.
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Bad people do had things. If bad people did good things they would be good people, so we come to define the person based on the behaviors exhibited and the moral evaluation of those behaviors. It is in this context that we find the humiliation/degradation dynamic. Without question the forums for the inore serious pronouncements of morality are the criminal court and the juvenile justice system.
TIlE FEAR OF llUMILIATION Criminologists have noted the impact of tile dynamics of social groups on crime causation and punishment. There are many theories which note that criminal behavior, particularly delinquency, is related to the offender's social group (Sutherland's DiffErential Association Theory, Hirschi's Social Control Theory, and the gang studies of Thrasher and Cohen). Each of these criminological propositions focuses on the social nature of human behavior and though most do not explicitly deal with humiliation, it can be postulated that the fear of social sanctions in the form of loss of status or fear of humiliation by tile group is a key motivator in the felt power of the social group. Without a fear of humiliation the individual would be much less likely to follow the social rules of a deviant group. The attachments that a youth develops [)lay a critical role in establishing the rules for behavior. The strength of these attachments is often related to the fear of humiliation if the individual fails to live up to the expectation imposed by the group. Clearly, the same process is operational be the social group a law abiding group or a law violating group.
ItUMILIATION AND T I | E POLICE The Arrest Police officers are trained to apprehend law breakers and they are proud of themselves when they are successful at their task. Their enthusiasm often times includes an opportunity to humiliate the accused offender. An example is in order: About three years ago, I was wozking late on a Friday and entered the main offices of our department to leave some papers for the secretary for the following Monday. As I entered the office I heard a noise from the Chair's adjoining office. 1 left the office, returned to my own and called campus security. Two officers responded and with revolvers drawn they entered the offices, with this author in close pursuit. The officers found the
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suspect, a student, in short order and placed him in handcuffs and set him, with some authority, in a straight backed chair. The young man was emotionally shaken and was trembling. He sat in the chair looking at the floor. The y o u n g officer who was no older than the suspect held the following conversation: " W h a t ' s going to happen to m e ? " asked the young man after the ofricers removed the five examinations he had in his pockets. With a wide grin the officer responded: " Y o u are going away for a very long time, kid." "I can't be sent to prison for this, can I?" "Listen kid, you are guilty of a Class C Felony, Burglary of a Business. That will get you five years in prison. You are going away for a long time and young cute guys like you will have plenty of boyfliends in the joint. Y o u better pucker up sweety. Ain't that right?" looking at his fellow officer. "Yep, this boy is in real trouble. What prompted you to do such a stupid thing anyway'?" responded the second officer. " Y o u aren't very bright are you, college boy'?" T h e officers were thrilled to finally get a chance to a p p r e h e n d a "real" criminal and they were taking advantage of their power and tile powerlessness of the offender to have a "little fun" at the offender's expense. This act of humiliation was within the understood bounds of acceptable behavior and can be viewed as an emotional outlet on many fronts. First, the officers spend most of their time on routine matters, such as patrol, loud parties and crowd control. They are facing a rather unique event and they are enjoying an opportunity to vent their anger at a lawbreaker who is clearly an offender and one who is not in a social position to retaliate. Secondly, when the officers encounter those who are inebriated they are unable to impress on them the severity of their offense and are usually not able to hold a conversation with the offender. These situations result in the officers being frustrated that they are not able to tell the offender how they feel about the offender's behavior. Thirdly, police are not held in high regard by the society as a whole and there is a resultant sense of inferiority or at least perceived inferiority that is found in the social group of the police. The officers are reluctant to even tell strangers what they do for a living. [It is standard for police officers in my classes to ask me not to tell the class their occupation because they fear that the class will ostracize them.] T h e opportunity for a police officer to capture a "real" felon is a cause for celebration and the humiliation of the suspect is simply a manifestation of the frustrations brought about by low status. This is a way for a police officer to state "I am s o m e b o d y . . . a real police officer,"
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There are clear legal safeguards for police behavior but the act of being placed under arrest and taken inte eu:;tody is at base a humiliating experience.
tlUMIL1ATION AND TIlE COURTS Degradation Ceremonies
Durkheim (1950) proposed that immorality and crime were nccessaly parts of society, lle noted that the prcser~ce of "bad" peoplc is a monumentally effective v,,ay to assure th,it the "good" people band togcthui-. Thc presence of the " b a d " reinforces the commonly held rules for "good" behavior. Indeed, it has been proposed that "good" behavior cannot exist without "bad" behavior (Douglas, 1970). The social group must become aware of the "bad" behavior arid must come to understand that there was ,m official p r o n o u n c e m e n t of shame upon the offending party (Garfinkel, 1956). This degradation ceremony is the Sentencing or I)ispositional |tearing. The decision has been made rind we have proverl beyond a reasonable doubt that this person has violated our most powerful rules, the law. At the sentencing, the accused stands alone in front of "'the bench," an imposing structure of the finest wood (the paneling alone for a small courthouse will cost $500,000), and is told of the punishment that society will demand for the offense COlnmitted.
Judges as llumiliators
Judges and prosecutors and legislators are designated by the society, to be "moral entrepreneurs" (Becker, 1973). +File .judge is charged by, the society to sit in jtidgment of citizens' behavior. The prosecutor seeks to respond to the feelings of the public and appease the most vocal critics, while the legislators seek to win re-election by playing to the public's fcar of crime. The judges pronounce people good or bad anti when a pronouncement of "'bgid" is seen as necessai T the judge expresses the outrage of the " g o o d " p e o p l e in what has been called a c e r e m o n y of d e g r a d a t i o n (Garfinkel, 1956). I r e m e m b e r one judge in a major southwestern city who was attempting to explain to two young offenders what he was doing and his rationale
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for placing these two brothers, ages 7 and 9, on probation. The judge explained: Boys, I am placing you tm p r o b a t i o n because you arc dclinqucnI. That m e a n s that you arc BAD. You havc b r o k e n the law and you illtlSl |'~c punished. All of us expect you to bc good but sincc you chose to bc B A D 1 am assigning Ms. R o b c r t s o n to kce t) an eye on you in case you do anything clsc that is bad. I expect you h} bc good from now on, but in case you kccp being bad, Ms. R o b c r t s o n will loll me and you will be p u n i s h e d more severely next lhnc.
The judge in this case performed a degradation c e r e m o n y and, on behalf of the society, humiliated the offending juveniles. Such judicial behavior is cominon in both the juvenile courts as well ;is the criminal (adult) courts.
,ludges often take this time to berate the offender, and to make it clear to all of society that "'We the people" are not willing to accept an apology but we d e m a n d vengeance/retribution. This humiliation is part of the reaffirmation or the behavioral rules held by the society. Even minor offenses carry a certain degree of humiliation delivered by the judge, as a representative of the society. A judge, after hearing my statement regarding a minor traffic citation, responded with the following warning: "Mr. Smith, I shall have you post a $35.00 bond and if3'ou call l,ccp your m~.~c clean and stay ~mt o f trouble with the Am' for 45 days, it will be returned to you. Do you think you can do that Mr. Smith?" Even nay traffic citation required a certain level of humiliation to assure that I remained a law abiding citizen. The major work to identify the properties of degradation have been identified (Garfinkel, 1956), but have rarely been applied to the court setting. The court clearly meets the identified criteria: 1. Both event and perpetrator must be relnoved from the reahn of their everyday character and be made to stand as "out of the ordinary." The court considers the accused as an object frozen in time. The court is interested in the person only as that person was found at the time of the offense. Additional personal characteristics are usually considered irrelevant and refused as evidence. 2. The d e n o u n c e r must identify him/herself in a public rolc not a private one. The judge (denouncer) must be acting in the capacity of a public figure and must make p r o n o u n c e m e n t s on behalf of the public not the judge's personal beliefs or values. 3. The d e n o u n c e r must p r o n o u n c e judgment in the name of the tribe or social group. Judges are elected or appointed to act on behalf of the citizenry, and the case is brought by a prosecutor that functions as a representative of the people, the State.
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4. The denouncer must be seen to uphold these ultimate values (i.e. the Law). The selections criteria for the judiciary focus on the ability of the judge to uphold the law. The refusal of the Congress to consent to the appointment of Judge Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court is an example of the importance we place on this requirement. The Congress felt that Judge Bork would not uphold the law and might place his personal views ahead of it, so his appointment was denied. 5. The denouncer must distance him/herself from the denounced person. The court and the various persons who work in the court view the person as a case not an individual. The courts are to be impartial arbiters of justice and they are forbidden to involve themselves in the life of the accused outside of the specific allegations before the court. The outcome of the presenting case should be consistent with the decisions made in other like cases previously, the Doctrine of Stare Decisis. 6. Finally, the denounced person must be made strange, placed outside the legitimate order. This offender is at odds with ordered or lawful society and this must be made clear in the degradation ceremony. " T h e c o u r t a n d its o f f i c e r s h a v e s o m e t h i n g like a fair m o n o p o l y o v e r s u c h c e r e m o n i e s , a n d t h e r e t h e y h a v e b e c o m e o c c u p a t i o n a l r o u t i n c . " E l s c w h c r c in I h c a r t i c l e t h e c o u r l is r e f e r r e d to as " . . . o u r p r o f e s s i o n a l d e g r a d e r s in t h e law c o u r t s . . . " ( G a r f i n k c l , 1956:211).
H U M I L I A T I O N AND C O R R E C T I O N S The Pains of Imprisonment Gresham Sykes (1958) studied the maximum security prison in New Jersey and reported on the facets of prison life which impose the greatest pain on the inmate. He proposed that there were five characteristics of prison life which were the basis for the "pain of imprisonment." The The The The The
Deprivation Deprivation Deprivation Deprivation Deprivation
of of of of of
Autonomy Liberty Heterosexual Contact Safety Goods and Services
The loss of these personal rights is always painful but a key factor in the determination of the level of pain experienced is the degree to which the inmate comes to perceive of "self" as degraded. There is a link between the ability of the individual to psychologically address the loss of these particular items and the degree to which the inmate feels a sense of
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humiliation and shame. As has been mentioned, there seems to be an either/or proposition to the humiliation/degradation received by offenders at the hands of the officials of the society. Either an offender will internalize the humiliation and accept the shame showered upon him/her, resulting in a loss of self-worth and selfesteem, or the offender will seek to neutralize the degradation and shame by applying certain techniques which will tend to justify the offending behavior. In either case, the result is a greater likelihood that the offender will again offend against the society. Prison life is a prolonged period of hunliliation. It seems that there are several variations of the humiliation dynamic which are carried out through the experience of prison life. First, there is prison itself, the rejection by society. Secondly, there is the loss of autononly and the humiliation of being denied the opportunity to make even the simplest of personal choices. Finally, there is the humiliation of the interaction between the kept and the keepers. Being rejected by the society and segregated from the life of the community is a humiliating experience. The society has stated that the offender is unfit to live with others. The offender cannot be trusted to behave properly and has been told in official terms, that society demands he/she be caged and controlled. The prison sentence is a statement to the offender that the society has rejected the person and has found that this person is incompetent to handle even the simplest of decisions. "This shows what prison has d o n e to us," E u g e n e m o a n e d . "It's m a d e us craven. Lock m e n up. C o u n t them. Crucify them body and soul. Scorn them and distrust them. A n d what do you get'? You get a convict; a man who's conic to scorn hhllself and his c o m r a d e s , to distrust himself and cvep:,body else. t t c r c wc ;ire a lot of brave men. Yes, we ;ire brave. We'll risk death fl~r liberty. But we haven't goI the guts to s t a n d up and put o u r case straight. O u r m a n h o o d ' s gone. T h a t ' s what h a p p e n e d . Just ;is if they'd filed it away with our finger prints. T h e r e ' s nothing [eft of us but a body fighting for its existence. - - " O h , I could b e a r being heartbroken{ But il's being spirit-broken lhal's killing hie." ( E u g e n e and B e r n a r d d i s c u s s i n g their recent p h i c c m c n t as trustees on Devil's Island. Excerpt from Nilcs, 1~28:173)
The inability of the offender to make even the simplest of decisions is a constant source of humiliation for the offender. The offender is called upon to obey all commands and his/her life is controlled even to the minutia of daily life. Clearly, one of the major problems of inmates is irresponsibility. If irresponsibility is the problem, then the society "should make them accountable. Locking up a Slob makes them irresponsible and society becomes totally accountable for every aspect of their lives. We totally take over their obligations . . . . We make freeloaders out of a freeloader." (Chaleen, 1986:59)
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THE 1990's: MOVING AWAY FROM HUMILIATION? New Ideas
As our society presses on into the 1990's, there are trends within the practice of criminal justice that are, on the one hand, disturbing but, on the other, there are indications that there will be some dramatic changes particularly in the corrections profession. On the darker side, most criminologists predict that there will continue to be a push by elected officials to "get tough" on crime. In April and September, 1989, President Bush announced his multibillion dollar program to stop drug abuse in this country by getting tough with drug users and dealers. He called for longer mandatory sentences for drug users and dealers, the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer in connection with drugs, and he added prison beds, federal prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel. For the short run, we are looking at the continuation of the trend toward a more punitive response to crime and criminal offenders. The federal government has established sentencing guidelines which effectively end parole and many aftercare programs, leaving offenders at risk upon release from prison. In Indiana, a bill to castrate rapists was genuinely considered in the 1989 legislative session. Inmates are released from prison with one set of second-hand clothes, $75.00, and a 9(1 day reorientation program at the Salvation Army. The stigma of being an ex-con and the humiliation of applying for jobs with outdated skills, and a hole in your work history that must be explained to each potential employer combine to continuously humiliate the recently released inmate. This continuing humiliation contributes to the recidivism (prison return) rate, which is currently about 75%. The prevailing belief is that all offenders are violent, some even subhuman or innately evil (Colson, 1980). This popular myth is untrue. In reality, only 30.5 per cent of admitted offenders during 1983 committed a violent crime. This was down from 37.2 per cent in 1982 (Camp and Camp, 1984). The belief that offenders are dangerous and violent means that we as a society imprison more people than any modern industrialized nation. There is no reason to believe that this trend toward more punishment and humiliation will be abated in the near future. There are however, some interesting new programs and services in the offing and some of these programs are demonstrating encouraging results in the reduction of criminal behaviors based, at least in part, on a reduction of humiliation and degradation. The first is the Menninger Foundation's C H A R L E E Family Care Program and the second is Prison
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Fellowship, Inc. Both of these programs develop a caring, supportive environment for the offender and both spend a great deal of time dealing with the offender in ways which reduce the humiliation and degradation. [I know about both of these programs first hand, and have had the opportunity to observe them closely.]
CHARLEE The Menninger Foundation's C H A R L E E Family Care operates in several states and is patterned after The Villages, a 2{) year old program in Topeka, Kansas. There are several unique characteristics of the C H A R L E E (Children Have All Rights, Legal, Educational and Emotional) program. The overarching concern is to establish a "normal" family setting and to encourage "normal" family interaction. This concept sets it apart from all the other "family-milieu" programs. C H A R L E E places homes in neighborhoods, hires married couples as house parents whose primary residence is the group home, focuses the program supports on the house parents not the child and mixes residents of each house based on age, sex, and type of problems. By placing a home in a neighborhood setting, C H A R L E E assures that the youth interact with other youth who are outside the purview of the juvenile court. The placed youth finds that other youth in the neighborhood become friendly and the youth have the opportunity to develop non-delinquent peer groups. Most other programs avoid the difficult development issues encountered when attempting to gain entry into a residential neighborhood and place youth service agencies in the rural areas thereby prohibiting the youth from associations with youth who have not been placed by the court. One young lady (14 years old) was an abused, neglected, predelinquent. She would regularly (every other Friday afternoon) become an incredibly nasty and ill-tempered person. She would be impossible to deal with and would press the house parents until she was grounded to her room for the evening. It was perplexing to the staff because on these Friday evenings the family would dress up and go to a "nice" restaurant and then out to the movies or a concert. This young lady (1'11 call her Alice) would spend Saturday mornings asking other kids what the movie was about, but would continue her sullen ways towards the house parents. The staff studied behavioral incident reports and the house mother finally said: "I think Alice is afraid of being humiliated by not knowing how to dress and act at the nicer places we go to eat."
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The house parents decided to have practice nights at home on the alternate Fridays. They had a new placement coming that week so they decided to say they wanted to practice for the new boy's benefit. Alice did not know how to walk in high heels, she had never been to a restaurant that had place settings and she did not know what to do with all of the extra forks, spoons and other such things. Fear of being humiliated generated anti-social behavior. The fear of humiliation was of critical importance in this case and without the provision for the youth to practice behaviors in the "'real" world they will be ill-equipped for re-entry from a correctional program. Humiliation or the fear of it is a motivator of behavior but the humiliation is dependent on the social mores (rules) of the prinlary social group to which the subject is attached.
Prison Fellowship Prison Fellowship is another correctional program which has effectively addressed the tmmiliation needs of offenders and in so doing has shown some remarkable results. Tile basic tenets of this program are theological in nature. Prison Fellowship is supported and indeed, was initiated by a group of concerned Christians. The involvement of Christians in tile reform of correctional policy and practice follows a long tradition dating back to the first prisons ill Pennsylvania. The Quakers developed tile Solitary System in the late 1700's in response to the English system which they felt was barbarous. Prison Fellowship has many different components, Justice Fellowship, Project Angel Tree, In-prison Seminars, Community Service Seminars, publications, and alternative sentencing services (Van Ness, 1986). Each of these programs is based on a theory best described as "restorative justice." The principles of Prison Fellowship are focused on the need to restore the victim, the offender, and tile community. One example of the restorative nature of the services is: Jerry was convicted of burglary and was scheduled to be sentenced. He was fortunate in that he had been able to obtain the assistance of Prison Fellowship's Alternative Sentencing Project. The volunteers sought to mediate between Jerry and his victim. All agreement was eventually reached wherein Jerry would provide free lawn care for the victim for a period 2 years while he served his time on probation. Prison Fellowship volunteers monitored Jerry's work. After a few months the victim's neighbors began to notice how nice the yard looked and asked the victim for the name of the service he used. The referrals came and Jerry became an entrepreneur. The victim
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will never pay for his yard service. Jerry is a taxpayer and provides employment for probationers and parolees. Clearly, the above example is a success story, but there are many programs for burglars throughout the country who require the offender make restitution to the victim. Almost all probation departments require offenders to make restitution whenever feasible but they don't have this kind of success story to tell. What makes Prison Fellowship unique? I propose that the differences have to do with the difference between retribution and restoration. Retribution is revenge. It is punishment. It is humiliating and often mean spirited. It inflicts punishment because the offender is "bad" and deserves to be punished. The offending party is seen as culpable and often incapable of making amends. Given this set of assumptions the offender is denounced and painful consequences are imposed to assure that tile offending behavior is not repeated (Walker, 198(1:24-35). Tile problem with this ever so popular notion of punishment is that it has been rarely shown to be effective at reducing future criminal behaviors (Walker, 1980:36). Restorative programs, on the other hand, focus on the worthiness of everyone involved in the event. The victim's needs are considered and addressed, while at the same time, the offender is viewed as a capable person who has the ability to restore the victim and thereby assuage the guilt of the offense and feel good about him/herself. By establishing that programs and services will be restorative in nature, Prison Fellowship has addressed the issues of humiliation.
SUMMARY AND CONCI,US1ONS It is clear that the climinal justice system is now and has always been organized to humiliate the offender and thereby reinforce the rules for acceptable behaviors. The hunliliation is inherent in the act of taking control of a person, but the continued humiliation of offenders is destructive, breeding self-doubt, self-abasement and further illegal behavior. To appropriately address this humiliation dynamic may indeed be a major innovation in correctional practice. There is no question that humiliation is an effective motivator of human behavior. Many people who find that they have made a mistake in judgment and are guilty of a crime will be ashamed of themselves and will cease the offending behavior quickly with very little necessity for official intervention. Unfortunately, these people are not the ones responsible for this nation's excessive crilne rates. These people realize their mistake,
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accept the blame, and take action to assure that the offense does not occur again. Our court dockets and prison beds are full to overflowing with people who cannot handle responsibility, cannot accept blame, and are either incapable of corrective action or choose not to take corrective action. These are the people that are such a challenge to our society and its criminal justice system. With this group, the use of humiliation will often increase misbehavior rather than decrease it. By humiliating these people the justice system further alienates the offender and quite unintentionally pushes the offender into further and often more serious criminal activity. It is imperative that the professionals who work with offenders understand the intended A N D unintended consequences of humiliation.
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