Theodore L. Dorpat - Crimes of Punishment: America's Culture of Violence

This groundbreaking book by an award-winning psychoanalyst and forensic psychiatrist presents a comprehensive exploration of a timely but often taboo topic: the failure of punishment to deter crime and violence, an issue that affects us both individually and as a culture.

Written at the culmination of the author s fifty-year career as a psychoanalyst, forensic psychologist and scholar, this wide-ranging work identifies the origins of violence and investigates the surprising consequences of punishment from a multitude of perspectives. In his treatment of the topic, Dr. Dorpat utilizes scientific research; ethical reasoning, and his vast clinical experience and insight. He also suggests the benefits of new and emerging humane alternatives to the revenge/punishment model currently entrenched in our society, such as restorative justice. In contrast to most contemporary measures, these new approaches while still imprisoning dangerous individuals effectively stress reparation and forms of sanctioning other than incarceration. When restitution replaces revenge, everyone benefits.

Crimes of Punishment examines four key, interrelated social methods of punishment. These are (1) the corporal punishment of children, (2) the incarceration of adults in prisons, (3) capital punishment the death penalty, and (4) emotional (verbal) abuse. As he elucidates and analyzes each of these forms of punishment, Dr. Dorpat clearly and logically makes the case that punishment is not only ineffectual but that it also engenders more of what it ostensibly aims to stop: violence and misbehavior. Both children and adults who are subjected to punishment tend to become more violent individuals.

In covering the full scope of our contemporary justice system Dr. Dorpat brings to the forefront those who are often overlooked or dismissed: the victims of crime. His concluding chapters present and clarify the psychological wounds and needs of these individuals, and demonstrate how restorative justice is effective in attending to victims in an ethical and healing manner. In a humane and ethically evolved society restitution replaces punishment.

Market Comparison– Crimes of Punishment is unique in that it covers not just one but four different types of punishment (the corporal punishment of children, the incarceration of adults, the death penalty, and verbal [emotional] abuse). Two earlier books written by psychiatrists expose the terrible conditions in America s prisons. They are The Crime of Punishment (New York: Viking, 1968) by Karl Menninger, and Prison Madness by Terry Kupers (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999). This book differs in two important ways from the books written by Menninger and Kupers. First, The Crimes of Punishment covers other kinds of punishment, while those authors deal only with the punishment of incarceration. Secondly, the reforms they recommend are merely piecemeal modifications of the present criminal justice systems, whereas Dr. Dorpat argues for a radical change that includes the abolition of today s punitive prison (Retributive Justice) system and the establishment of a new and different system, namely Restorative Justice, a system that has been developed over the past decade in Australia and New Zealand. The Crimes of Punishment differs from Menninger s book in covering the many changes that have occurred in prisons since 1968. In several short chapters on restorative justice, the book also explores this exciting new approach and serves as an informed introduction to a new, important, and effective moral approach to the treatment of criminals.