Dougal Sutherland: Creative punishments - making the punishment match the crime

When thinking about punishments for crime, at least minor ones, there is often a balance between teaching someone a lesson to make sure they don’t do it again and not being so harsh that it ends up doing more harm than good. New research from the US shows a possible new pathway that might get this balance right, called Creative Punishments.  

Creative punishments were made popular by a particular judge in the US who, for example, sentenced a man who didn’t pay his taxi fare to have to walk the same distance as his taxi ride.  

Creative punishments are alternative forms of discipline that are designed to fit the specific nature of the crime, often by making the offender experience the consequences of their actions in a direct, meaningful way.  

Other examples of creative punishments include:  

• A woman who threw food at a fast-food outlet employee sentenced to work at a fast-food restaurant for 60 days instead of jail. 
• A man caught vandalizing a public statue was sentenced to cleaning graffiti. 
• A young person caught stealing mail was sentenced to go and sort and deliver mail. 

It has also been used in workplaces. For example, a worker who verbally abused and bullied a workmate had to go and work in a customer service department that often involved verbal altercations with the public.  

The key features of creative punishments are:  

• The punishment involves doing something related to the harm caused.  
• It’s specifically matched to the crime.  
• And the goal is to help the person understand why their behaviour was wrong.  

The research showed that the general public think creative punishments:  

• Are more appropriate.  
• Teach offenders better lessons.  
• Are less harsh but still effective at deterring future crimes.  

Interestingly, when asked to imagine what it would be like if you were the person who committed the crime, the majority of people preferred creative punishments when given the choice. 

Some parents will have experimented with these sort of natural consequences in disciplining their children e.g., for breaking a toy belonging to someone else, the child has to buy a new one for the friend out of their own money, or for constantly not cleaning up Lego, having the Lego taken away for a week.  

One of the key things was that creative punishments work best when they match the nature of the crime. Random or unrelated punishments don’t have the same positive effect. Maybe it’s time for our courts to try something new! 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be Doogle. Sutherland Is is a clinical psychologist from
Umbrella Well Being. He's with us this morning. Killed a Dougal.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
CID to Jack, I think you almost called me an umbrella.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Then I know, well I did. I had a new sting.
I had a new Jack Tame Jack, Dame Jack, tame Jack,
tame thing. And it put me off a little bit
to be yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yes, but just to you know, your rest your worries.
I'm not an umbrella. I am still okay.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
That's good. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
One.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
In fact, if I was considering you an umbrella, then
I probably need to see more than the clinical.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
That's there's an interesting, uh psychological condition where people there's
a classic name for that, or a great name for
that from an Oliver Sex.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
The man who thought his wife was a hat or something.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Isn't that's the one. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Yeah, he couldn't recognize people, So you could, you know,
conceivably you could recognize me as an umbrella.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
It would be odd anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hey, you're thinking, you're you're you're thinking about crime and
punish this morning or punishment in crime and we're the
punishment fit the crime.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. New research from the US which which
I found quite intriguing.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Really, it's called a new.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
Passway for looking at sentences for crimes, at least for
minor crimes, called creative punishments, and it tries to get
that balance right between teaching people a lesson with the
idea that they won't do it again and not being
so kind of overly harsh that it seems punitive and
its punishment. And it was made popular in a US

(01:41):
judge I think, who does quite a lot of these
who A guy took a taxi rider and failed to
pay his fear, and so they took him to court
and they made him pay us fair. But then the
judge also sentenced him to walk the same distance as
the taxi ride, just to emphasize what a pain it
was for the poor taxi driver. So it's kind of
it's really trying to fit that punishment creatively to the

(02:04):
crime to help people learn, learn, and hopefully not to
do it again.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's a really American thing, like judges coming up with
super creative things. I feel like like Judge Judy or
something like that would be doing I know that she
does the kind of civil things. But you know what
I mean, like it's a real you know, you always
read the stories about a Texas judge who's you know,
said that someone has to wear a sign around their
neck and stand on a busy intersection or something like that.

(02:31):
You know, all those crazy kind of crimes.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
I know, it's another I mean, I think you're right,
it is a bit of a us thing, but I
think we could learn from it. I mean, there's there's
another couple of examples that are like one a woman
who threw a food at a fast food outlet employee,
and you know you often see those sort of little
clips somebody chucks all the food back through the.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Through the drive through window.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Well, she was sentenced to having to work sixty days
in the fast food.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Restaurant for no pay, just to experience it herself.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Or an easy one, somebody group vandalizing a public statue
had to then clean the statue, which which you know,
there's a real kind of natural consequence.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Even in workplaces, they've used at.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Somebody who abused not not physically but verbally sort of
abused one of their workmates rather than sort of getting
some sort of final warning or getting dismissed. They had
to go and work in a part of the part
of the business which was involved in customer services where
they have to receive a lot of complaints and verbal
abuse from the public. So I kind of like that

(03:33):
matching of it, that sense that actually this is proportionate
to the crime and might help you learn from it.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
So what are the kind of key features of what
could be deemed a creative punishment?

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Then, yeah, so that there are three kind of key
features verstically that the punishment has to be related to
the harm caused, and that's different. You know, when we
send people to prison, by and large, they're not going
to prison because they have imprisoned somebody themselves largely.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
So that so prison or whatever, even.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
A fine is usually completely unrelated. But these are specifically
or are related to the crime. So you know, an
easy example, you've graffited a statue, so you clean the
statue and it is specifically matched to the crime. So
it's not like, you know, okay, for this sort of crime,
you either get three months in prison or a ten
thousand dollars fine, which is just a blanket one. These

(04:22):
are specifically matched and it does have the goal about
helping people understand the errors of their ways, so to speak,
with the idea that they won't do it again, which
is ultimately, I guess, or part of at least why
we have punishment. It's not the whole reason, but part
of why we have a punishment is so we don't
want people to do the same thing again. So it's
those three criteria related to the harm specifically matched and

(04:45):
understanding why the behavior was wrong.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, and you can see how so to take that
fast food to put the woman who threw food back
through the window and the fast food outlet and there
were sentenced to work there for sixty days. I mean, yep,
it's matched to the crime. So it's a fast food
and fast food and the punishment involved doing something related
to the harm caused.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
And then final one, it actually would helped her to
understand have a bit more empathy for someone earning nine
dollars fifty an hour working at a fast restaurant, like,
how can we make your day worse while we can
someone's going to throw a burger back in your face?

Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So that's that, I mean,
that's the idea, and you know, we can only hope
that it works to change people's minds, which yeah, for sure,
but that's that's the goal, which which which I can't
something about.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
It really appealed to me.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
It appeals to me as well. I think it appeals
toward us. And so you can imagine though that there
are certain, you know, scenarios in which it's appropriate. Right,
so for really serious criminal offensing finding, obviously it's not
going to be appropriate.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
But no, no, no, what about a parent?

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought of that that I was
reading it.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
I thought, you know, what a lot of parents will have.
And I've done a go in my career. I've done
a few of the old parenting programs and working with
parents and and often when if you can come up,
I think in parenting we often call it kind of
natural consequences or logical consequences. So if you playing with
a toy, you know, child's playing with a toy that
belongs to their brother or sister and they break it,

(06:11):
well they have to then obviously apologize, but then they
have to actually replace the toy, perhaps out of their
own money, and that there's a real.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Logical sense of, hey, this is a cost to the you.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Know, there's a financial cost, obviously, but this is a cost,
and it is annoying.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
For you, and you have to go out of your
way and.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Hopefully you learn actually just just to be a little
bit more careful next time, because you know, you've you've
learned the real world consequences I guess of of of
your actions and and I'm sure many parents will have
used those sorts of text neiques as well, and it's
just perhaps extending that up into adultthood.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
A little bit too.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Oh, it's so good. Hey, thank you for bringing our
attention to the research. It really is interesting.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Thanks us.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Remind me of those good old TV shows though, you know,
the judge duties and things you know, like this just
sometimes you know, America just does it best. And when
it comes to creative punishments, I reckon that's the place
to be. Thanks Google, Google. Umbra Doogle is not an umbrella.
Dougosovans a clinical psychologists from Umbrella Wellbeing.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
to News Talks d B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.