By Dymitr Haraszewski
Do you believe in punishment? Most people do, of course, even cheering on the punishment of people they’ve never met before, encouraging it on principle and basking in the vicarious thrill.
But what is the point? Not many people will admit to purely vindictive motivations, claiming instead that punishment is necessary to “correct wrongs” and “deter unwanted behavior” by creating unpleasant consequences for disapproved actions, thus reducing those actions. It’s a powerful argument since most of us have altered or avoided certain behaviors purely out of fear of punishment.
But isn’t this also where the logic of punishment breaks down, conflating the effects of fear of punishment with the effects of punishment itself? Punishment will not affect the feelings or beliefs that led to the undesirable actions in the first place because it teaches nothing about the “badness” of actions. Rather, punishment teaches only that the exercise of power is effective for obtaining compliance. It teaches that “might makes right” but has no inherent behavioral effect independent of the perceived likelihood of actually being caught and punished, which translates to a minimal practical effect 
because almost no one ever expects to be caught doing something punishable, or else they probably wouldn’t do it.
Alternatively, and much worse, expected punishments are often seen as the cost of actions one is “willing to pay the price for,” eliminating other ethical considerations altogether. Between the common belief that one likely won’t be caught, the pervasive legitimization of viciousness, and the sense of absolution offered to anyone willing to accept the “price tag” for an act they might want to commit, it seems pretty clear to me that punishment doesn’t “work,” and it may even be counterproductive.
While I am convinced of punishment’s futility, I realize it’s a tough sell for most people. We’re all ingrained with the Gospel of Punishment from before we can walk, so we rarely question the practice even after we’ve suffered or witnessed great injustices in its name. Because punishment is so thoroughly taken for granted, perhaps we should consciously consider some facts and arguments that may call its value into question.
First, regarding laws, prisons, and “crime,” it’s probably beyond dispute that there are more laws and longer sentences today than there were 100 years ago, and that today’s incarceration rate is far higher than it was in the early 1900s, a fact that likely holds true for every country on earth. If we’re to believe that “punishment works” in a world where more people have been caged over the past 40 years than in all of human history, how can we square that with the apparently indisputable fact that the “crime rate” (“crimes” per 100,000 people) is also higher over the past 40 years than it was 100 years ago—or in any event, not notably lower?
If people still rob, rape, and kill others at roughly the same frequency as they ever have, despite the colossal expansion of our government punishing apparatus, then how can any reasonable person still insist that “punishment works”? To answer that people and society have gotten that much worse just makes the point that much stronger since generations of ostensibly effective punishment should have reduced rather than increased a societal inclination toward “crime.” However, we see nothing like that at all.
The argument literally begins at the beginning: Hasn’t every infant tasted punishment by age two? Does a six-year-old exist who hasn’t felt pain and loss—many times—as punishment for some sort of misbehavior? If that “worked, ” how can many misbehaving seven- or eight-year-olds be left? And of course, those seven- and eight-year-old misbehavers get punished too: in school, at home, on sports teams, and amongst friends, yet most 10-year-olds still “misbehave” at times and get punished. So do 12-year-olds, teenagers, and adults. Why? If “punishment works,” then why isn’t the bulk of our well-punished human race virtually perfect, at least after age five or so?
It sure seems that punishment itself doesn’t change behavior or improve anything, so why do we continue to do so much of it? Why do we so vigorously insist this is a worthy and effective strategy (some even call it a solution!), rather than soberly accepting its atrocious track record and tragic collateral consequences and acknowledging punishment for what it is: at best, it is the shameful recourse of the lazy and incompetent, at worst, a horrifying tool of the power-mad.
