Thursday, November 26, 2009
Shame and Shoplifting at Wal-Mart
This article elaborates on how a judge from Alabama was trying to find ways to discipline shoplifters. He had realized over time that the usual fine or small amount of jail time didn't really scare people from repeating the same crime. He has found a great way to discipline these offenders through humiliation. The judge has been sentencing the offender and their sentence is to stand in front of the store they stole from with a sign on that says, "I stole from Wal-Mart." These stores may not be able to control them from shoplifting with their retail theft systems, but this judge has definitely put a stop to repeat offenders. Humiliation is a great weapon to use against people. Wal-Mart losses about 3 billion dollars a year to shoplifters and the number is rising due to the state of our economy and the unemployment rate being so extremely high. Shoplifting is something we're never going to be able to stop, but this judge sure has made a point to cut down on repeat offenders and the I believe this a great way to punish people. Hopefully once word gets out this will strike fear in people and prevent future retail theft problems.
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Very interesting way to punish a shoplifter. In my personal opinion, a criminal is a criminal. You can't change the way a person is by giving them a fine or some community service. Humiliation is a tactic I never really would have thought of for a criminal situation. I'm not the one to say whether humiliation will be effective in stopping a person from shoplifting, but I would sure love to see them out front with those signs!!!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, I believe that humiliation would be an effective tool. On the other hand, I could see this being a problem because the creative punishment is to hold a sign and stand in front of Wal-Mart. Even though this punishment is unique, but I am looking for a future law suit coming back to the judge for cruel and unusual punishment. Since Wal-Mart agreed to experiment with this tactic, I would believe that this could have bad publicity for the company. I thought that this would cause bad publicity because rather than the consumers focusing on everyday low prices; the consumers could be talking about how unorthodox the punishment was, and could reduce the amount of shopping due to the exposed criminal standing just outside the doors with a sign.
ReplyDeleteIf you were the judge from Alabama, who sentenced this crime, would you make an alternative punishment or stay with your decision after seeing what could happen?
In my opinion there are so many different methods to punish criminals, however I don't think that public humiliation is the most effective in any situation. Every company loses money due to shop lifting and it could be very detrimental to the company, but there are other ways to solve the problem. Adding more employees to supervise the store or by adding extra security around the store.
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