Oct 9 2011: Punishment is NEVER another name for negative reinforcement! Punishment and reinforcement are very different things: while the first decreases a behavior the other increases a behavior. Punishment or reinforcement are not pointless, but the behavior modification you are aiming at can be judged as pointless or not.
The best way to teach implies the best choices between positive and negative reinforcement, and positive and negative punishment. These choices depend on many factors - like the topography of the behavior, the urgency of the behavior change, the resources available and so on.
Prison was never meant to be a place where society puts its outcasts in order for them to learn its rules. Prison is just a place where society puts those that do not follow its rules so that it can maintain its structure. It is a very easy solution on the short term but ends up very costly and ineffective on the long run, and I think here lays the problem: we don`t need to lock people up if we have the knowledge we need in order to change their behaviors, but we need a place where we can control those that are a threat to us and for which no known behavior modification technique works.
Oct 9 2011: Punishment is part of any teaching process and it refers to any stimuli that come immediately after a behavior and so result in the future reduction of that behavior. It can be anything from an electric shock to a simple "No" as long as the effect is the reduction of the behavior. Because it is very difficult to apply correctly (and for some other technical reasons which I won`t specify here but you can read about in most psychology textbooks) is recommended to use it only after you tried reinforcement techniques and failed. Eradicating punishment would not be a very wise thing to do, as you would be eradicating a teaching technique that might be the effective on certain behaviors.
Punishment is not equal to jail time, and jail is not meant to work as a punishment for the behavior of those locked in, but is a way in which we 'clean up' our society and maintain it`s defined structure running. I have never heard any judge saying 'I `m sentencing you to prison so that in the future you won`t [for example] kill again' but I head this instead "I `m sentencing you to prison so that the families would have some comfort [that their reality is known and working well, and the crime that happened is just an anomaly that we can isolate]'. I agree that jail is overused and is too expensive for what it`s effects are, but eradicating it altogether is not the answer; we do not have all the knowledge to change all behavior and in some cases people need to be locked in some 'safe places' because of our limited knowledge.
On short, eradicating punishment from the law system or any system is way to radical and not very wise. In some situations punishment might be the only technique that can change a behavior and if our goal was to change that behavior it would be rather foolish from our part not to use it. The main problem, as I see it, is that public policies are not based on evidence, and what should be eradicated is not punishment, but bad public policies making.
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A reply on Conversation: eradicate punishment from the law system. instead, teach.
The best way to teach implies the best choices between positive and negative reinforcement, and positive and negative punishment. These choices depend on many factors - like the topography of the behavior, the urgency of the behavior change, the resources available and so on.
Prison was never meant to be a place where society puts its outcasts in order for them to learn its rules. Prison is just a place where society puts those that do not follow its rules so that it can maintain its structure. It is a very easy solution on the short term but ends up very costly and ineffective on the long run, and I think here lays the problem: we don`t need to lock people up if we have the knowledge we need in order to change their behaviors, but we need a place where we can control those that are a threat to us and for which no known behavior modification technique works.
A comment on Conversation: eradicate punishment from the law system. instead, teach.
Punishment is not equal to jail time, and jail is not meant to work as a punishment for the behavior of those locked in, but is a way in which we 'clean up' our society and maintain it`s defined structure running. I have never heard any judge saying 'I `m sentencing you to prison so that in the future you won`t [for example] kill again' but I head this instead "I `m sentencing you to prison so that the families would have some comfort [that their reality is known and working well, and the crime that happened is just an anomaly that we can isolate]'. I agree that jail is overused and is too expensive for what it`s effects are, but eradicating it altogether is not the answer; we do not have all the knowledge to change all behavior and in some cases people need to be locked in some 'safe places' because of our limited knowledge.
On short, eradicating punishment from the law system or any system is way to radical and not very wise. In some situations punishment might be the only technique that can change a behavior and if our goal was to change that behavior it would be rather foolish from our part not to use it. The main problem, as I see it, is that public policies are not based on evidence, and what should be eradicated is not punishment, but bad public policies making.