Joan Pomo wrote:
> As concerns fear of retribution as an element in reducing crime,
> what other element can replace it to control those whose sense of
> conscience is insufficient to prevent commission of criminal acts?
> This applies as well to the world of business and LO's.
From everything we've read, fear of retribution is not an effective
deterrant. If your boss says 'Do this or you're fired', this will
only be effective the first few times. Then you either live with it,
or get out from under it.
If we are seeing criminal acts increase, and we are reacting by
building jails to hold more prisoners, aren't we setting up an
expectation that there will be more crimes, so the criminal behaviour
is 'acceptable' and if you get caught, you'll go to jail and be taken
care of by the state?
For a person who is living at poverty state, the fear of going to jail
may not be fear at their deeper level. Jail may be more secure than
their current home. Jail may be more comfortable, and provide more
food than their current lifestyle.
Let me share a story to illustrate the problem of inappropriate
retribution...
' A new teacher went to her first day of school. There was a class
joker and bully who was held back for two years. He was now 18 and
the teacher was all of 24. He would joke and laugh and disrupt the
class. He had been many times to the prinicpal's office for the
'strap' and was actually proud when he came back after being strapped.
The teacher knew that she had to get him under control. One day she
decided to confront him and told him to sit down and be quiet. He
asked her snidely what she was going to do if he didn't. She promptly
stood up, went over and kissed him on the forehead. He was so
embarassed he never disrupted her class again, and went on to be a
model student. '
If the teacher had responded with the standard detentions, principal's
office, strapped... it was expected and in fact reinforced his
behaviour. We have to ensure the retribution is in fact appropriate
and effective. Our current penal system is not effective. If it was
we would not have repeat offenders and such a high rate of return.
Gary Scherling
Helping people help themselves
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GScherling_GMS_TPN
--GSCHERL@fed.ism.ca (GSCHERL)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>