Punishment occupies a central place in our lives and attitudes. We suffer a profound ambivalence about its moral
consequences. Persons who have been punished or are liable to be punished have long objected to the legitimacy
of punishment. We are all objects of punishment, yet we are also its users. Our ambivalence is so profound that
not only do we punish others, but we punish ourselves as well. We view those who submit too willingly to punishment
as "obedient" verging on the groveling coward, and we view those who resist punishment as "disobedient"
rebels. In The Punishment Response Graeme Newman describes the uses of punishment and how these uses change over
time.
Some argue that punishment promotes discrimination and divisiveness in society. Others claim that it is through
punishment that order and legitimacy are upheld. It is important that punishment is understood as neither one nor
the other; it is both. This point, simple though it seems, has never really been addressed. This is why Newman
claims we wax and wane in our uses of punishment; why punishing institutions are clogged by bureaucracy; why the
death penalty comes and goes like the tide.
Graeme Newman emphasizes that punishment is a cultural process and also a mechanism of particular institutions,
of which criminal law is but one. Because academic discussions of punishment have been confined to legalistic preoccupations,
much of the policy and justification of punishment have been based on discussions of extreme cases. The use of
punishment in the sphere of crime is an extreme unto itself, since crime is a minor aspect of daily life. The uses
of punishment, and the moral justifications for punishment within thefamily and school have rarely been considered,
certainly not to the exhaustive extent that criminal law has been in this outstanding work.