I agree - I'm so surprised people think this is cruel and unfair. Jail would be a far worse experience in terms of the kind of people you're locked up with. And jail doesn't seem to teach any lessons. It sounds like the people experiencing the these alternate forms of punishment don't want to experience them again, so they don't recommit the crime. I've long thought the punishment should fit the crime and that people should learn something from their punishment.
In lieu of jail time, some offenders ordered to carry signs, wear chicken suits
BY RON WORD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PALATKA, Fla. Reshane Lewis wasnt happy, sweat dripping from her face as she paraded outside the courthouse carrying a sign reading: I stole from a local store. The sun beat down. For two hours, Lewis carried the sign back and forth, her probation officer watching. Passers-by and court employees mostly ignored her. It is better than going to jail, but its not fair, said Lewis, who says she was arrested in a Wal-Mart last December for being the lookout while a friend took childrens clothes. Putnam County Judge Peter Miller has sentenced Lewis and more than 600 other people to carry signs at the courthouse or outside victimized stores over the past dozen years, part of his standard punishment for shoplifting. He is one of several judges around the country who believe unusual sentences, most often some form of public penitence, work. The company that administers Putnam Countys probation system says that only three of Millers sign carriers have repeated their offense. If you see someone marching up and down in front of a store, you may think twice before stealing. Im not going to say it is going to prevent it, but it will stop the one who did it from doing it again, said the judge, who gives the thieves a choice of a 30-or 60-day jail sentence or two hours of humiliation. They also must pay a $294 fine, perform 25 hours of community service and complete six months probation. Miller is not alone in his creative sentencing, as recent examples show: Teens who yelled Pigs at police officers in Painesville, Ohio, were ordered by Municipal Court Judge Michael A. Cicconetti to stand on a street corner with a pig and a sign reading, This is not a police officer. He also made three men arrested in a prostitution sting wear chicken suits near the area where they were arrested and carry a sign that referred to a notorious brothel: There is no chicken ranch in Painesville. Judge Larry Standley in Harris County, Texas, ordered a man who had slapped his wife to take yoga classes to help him lessen his anger. A San Francisco judge sentenced a man convicted of mail fraud to stand outside a post office with a sign that read: I stole mail. This is my punishment. Assistant Public Defender Mack Brunton, who represents many shoplifting defendants in Millers court, said, We dont like it, but what he does is legal. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to know that this is his way to encourage them not to do it again. It seems to work fairly well, Brunton said. He said defendants cringe when given Millers option of jail or sign. Sentences using public humiliation arent new in colonial times, lawbreakers were forced to sit in stocks. Their neighbors would taunt them and throw rotten vegetables or even excrement. William Dunlap, a professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, has looked into unusual sentences and doesnt know of any studies showing whether jail or public embarrassment is a stronger deterrence. Since the cases are misdemeanors, the sentences are seldom challenged in higher courts, Dunlap said. They dont amount to cruel and unusual punishment. They are unusual, but most of them not as cruel as sending someone to jail or prison, he said. In his 22 years on the bench in this town 50 miles southwest of Jacksonville, Miller has seen some strange thefts. One of the most unusual was a man who left a store with a kielbasa in his pants and a bottle of Pepto Bismol in his pocket. The man explained that he stole the sausage because he was hungry and the stomach medication because kielbasa gave him heartburn. Miller says most thieves lift items they dont really need DVDs, video games, clothes, cosmetics and he has little sympathy for them. I dont like having to pay for a thief taking something, and I dont think anybody else does either, said Miller, 63. The rest of us end up paying for what they are stealing.
