The trend toward "shaming" sentences.

This article and this one are among several I have read over the last few months noting a trend toward sentences designed to shame the defendant into going straight.

With scarce and expensive prison and jail space being inceasingly reserved for violent criminals and most rehabilitation programs returning so little bang for the buck, trial judges are being forced to be more imaginative.

I suppose that there will be inevitable appeals suggesting that such sentences violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, as Fordham Law School Professor James Cohen notes in this article, "There is a long, long history of shaming people," Cohen said, noting the colonial practice of putting people in stocks on village greens.

I recall when I was a young prosecutor back in the 70's, I was handling the sentencing of a mid-level executive of a Fortune 500 corporation who had been convicted of embezzling a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The judge expressed the thought that it might be more effective if, instead of sending him to prison, he be required to walk up and down in front of corporate headquarters during the lunch hour every workday for a year while wearing a sign saying "I am a thief." The defendant piped up that he would rather go to prison than be humiliated like that. The judge gave him his wish and sent him to prison for five years but ever since I have wondered if such sentences might not be a more effective deterent than prison.