Can punishment change human

behaviour?
Very few punishment systems seek to change
the offenders behaviour and help him to a new
path

Do punishments deter more wrongdoing? Do punishments actually reform

an offender? Given the present context of one of the most significant
initiatives in the history of independent India to fight corruption, the
answers to these questions assume huge significance.

Conceptually, most legal systems are retributive. As long as the guilty

have been identified, and there is equivalence, at least at a proportional
level, between the damage the offender has caused to the victim and the
punishment, it is believed justice has been delivered. With it, the
expressive role of punishment is fulfilled. It communicates to the offender
that society condemns his act and to the victim that society disapproves
of the offenders deed. It reassures the larger society that it vindicates law
and upholds several values that are dear to society.

In this framework, punishment is seen as an end in itself. Very few

punishment systems seek to change the offenders behaviour and help
him to a new path. Studies show that 66% of those in the US set free after
serving a prison sentence will be rearrested within three years. That figure
is close to 60% in the UK, rising to 70% for those who have served at least
two previous sentences. Studies in Canada show that more than 30% of
those who drive under the influence of alcohol are repeat offenders.
There is no reason to believe that this trend of repeat offence will be any
better in India.

Most repeat crimes today are a game-like scenario where the offender
tries several innovative ways to avoid the long arm of the law. Every time
he successfully manages to dodge the law, there is a dopamine release
that leads to jubilation. This dopamine high leads to an urge to repeat. The
few times you get caught, it is seen as being not smart enough. People
who are caught and punished are not quietly learning to change their
offending behaviour, but they quickly learn how not to get caught the next
time.

Can we develop a punishment system whose ultimate end is to change

the behaviour of the offender on a sustained basis?

The existing system of punishments is a rational game where the focus is

on restoring a semblance of balance between the criminal and the victim.
In this process, the role of emotions, which can trigger behavioural
change, is completely ignored. Organized religion, on the other hand, has
done a good job in inducing behavioural change by including repentance
as an integral part of correcting a wrong act.

By not taking the guilty plea to the logical next step of repentance, the
legal system misses a huge opportunity to drive behavioural change in the
offender. Current punishment systems, which focus on the plea and on
the quantum of punishment, tend to elicit shame in the perpetrator rather
than guilt. While shame and guilt are often conflated, these emotions
differ significantly in their antecedents and action tendencies. Shame
triggers an action tendency of withdrawal, whereas guilt triggers an action
tendency of reparation.

Today, for most wrongdoings, ranging from jumping a traffic signal to

spitting in public places to driving under the influence of alcohol, the
punishment is almost always an economic one, monetary fines. Economic
disincentives tend to trigger cognitive evaluations of non-conformity. Can
we change the disincentive to trigger more emotional evaluation, say, by
making the punishment meted out the exact opposite of the reward he
was seeking through this wrong act?

A person jumps a red signal because he wants to avoid the certain and
immediate loss of having to wait for few seconds, or simply because most
others are doing it. As a punishment, the reckless drivers should be asked
to undertake a task that consumes a lot of time. Instead of monetary
fines, more reward killing punishments could create stronger impact in
the wrongdoers brain.

In medieval times, both the judicial process and the punishments were
almost always public. Public confessions of guilt and open expressions of
remorse were the order of the day. Today, the whole legal and punishment
processes have moved into the confines of a courtroom. The possibility of
public humiliation is a powerful tool which need not be precluded from the
justice system.

Getting a person to make a commitment is one of the surest ways to

inculcate new behaviour. Can the new punishment system seek a
commitment from the offender that he will not repeat his crime?

Studies have shown that public commitments given in writing, and made
to significant people, can have a strong impact on ones behavioura
technique mastered by the Chinese, who went about re-educating
American prisoners of war using simple commitment devices during the
Korean war.

All of us have multiple personalities. A person might have a dishonest

identity as far as paying tax is concerned. But the same person will have
an honest identity as well, say, when it comes to being a good parent to
his children. Can the new punishment system identify the most
appropriate identity which triggers the required behavioural change?

The punishment system we use today is centuries old. In the last few
years, new knowledge from the world of cognitive neuroscience and
behavioural economics has provided lots of new learnings about human
behaviour. Its time we reform punishment systems, using this knowledge,
and bring in models that have sustained behavioural change as the end
point.

Biju Dominic is the chief executive officer of Final Mile Consulting, a

behaviour architecture firm.