The Consequences of Shaming People and the Use of Public Shaming Punishments

To shame someone means to publicly humiliate them for being, doing, or saying something inappropriate. People get shamed every day, but some outcomes are worse than others. We all know someone that has been shamed, but how will being shamed affect them? Why do people shame others? What point is being proved? Was such harsh humiliation necessary? Consequences of shaming are too much. The shaming process goes overboard just to humiliate the person and punish them in odd ways that makes the shamed lose their peace of mind.

Shaming is destroying people and not feeling bad about it.

To be shamed is a bad situation to be in. Back in 2013, Justine Sacco had tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white!"(Ronson). And then came the trolls: [l'm actually kind of hoping Justine Sacco gets aids? lol)” (Ronson), simply because people found it offensive and clapped back. Sacco was later fired from her job, but only because “social media demanded it.

Get quality help now

Marrie pro writer

Verified writer

Proficient in: Public Shaming

5 (204)

“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

... She was losing herself.” (Ronson). “Twitter is basically a mutual approval machine" (Ronson), meaning we surround ourselves with people with the same vibes, which makes us feel good. Though shaming embarrasses for the moment, it also ruins the future. It may cause the loss of a job, isolation from family members, and even jail time.

Courthouses across the country display the Lady Justice statue "to measure the strengths and weaknesses of the cases brought before her."(Simon). Some judges may give harsher punishments than others. Recent punishments include public shaming.

Instead of sending the bad guy to jail, they punish them by going out in public and embarrass themselves in front of hundreds, or thousands of people. That causes their reputation to be tarnished. In recent years, a number of judges have ordered what amounts to public shaming instead of prison time.People have been punished by "shoveling manure, being made to sleep in a dog kennel, or standing on a busy street corner wearing a sign to tell the public of the crime they committed."(Simon).

Though the punishment isn't as big as prison, they receive the same treatment as inmates, such as isolation. “In 2012, a different Cleveland judge gave a woman a choice of going to jail or spending two days standing in a street corner with a sign reading: 'Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.' The woman chose to hold the sign. (Morrison). Society may consider such punishments cruel and unusual, but the shamed people would rather take that than imprisonment.

“Judges have sentenced a La Habra slumlord to live in his own run-down building under house arrest for two months, and made an Ohio woman who abandoned 33 kittens spend a night in the woods." (Morrison), because jail was too cruel for the crime." Shaming forces rather than recommends the implementation of the morally correct social order.