Pubdate: Thu, 19 Oct 2000
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2000 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/observer/
Author: Rich Barkemeyer
Note: Rich Barkemeyer is a senior at Vance High School.

SHAME TV? CITY COUNCIL SHOULD BE ASHAMED

Officials' latest idea for stopping drug abuse and prostitution will shame 
family members, not just the law-breaker.

Forget about Big Brother, it's your neighbors who are watching you now.

That's right, Shame TV, the biggest craze since Character Cities to hit the 
City Council, is to become a reality. Mayor Pat McCrory has stated that 
shame is lacking nowadays. So his plan is to post pictures of johns and 
drug buyers on the city's own cable television station, in an effort to 
make criminals think twice before they score that bag of heroin or open the 
door for that prostitute.

Far be it from me to criticize the City Council, but this is ridiculous.

Does the heroin junkie care that his face has been exposed on what is 
basically a public access channel? Of course not. The addict has no shame, 
and addiction has no pride. A person who is chemically dependent on a drug 
has only one thing on his mind: the drug. The addict's mind is consumed by 
the search for the drug, and the use of the drug. What his neighbors or the 
person behind the counter in McDonald's thinks of him is of little consequence.

In my idealistic phase (January 1999-September 2000), I thought that the 
point of incarceration was rehabilitation. Now, I admit that if you kill 27 
people with an ax, you don't deserve to be rehabilitated. But a drug user 
is different. He could conceivably come clean, but flashing his face on TV 
does nothing to help the rehabilitation process. Getting time on TV will 
not make him take the needle out of his arm and go find a good job in the 
city. The sun will still rise, and the addiction will be calling.

"But what about the johns?" I can hear you screaming into your paper.

Well, let's assume that the man has a wife and a child. His picture appears 
on Shame TV with the scarlet letters JOHN below. This may be a suitable 
punishment for him, but where does the punishment end? Does it stop with 
just the john? Think of his wife, who has to face her friends in the 
supermarket.

Think of the child who has to go to school amid the whispering, "You know 
what my mom told me about his dad?" Who are we really punishing? In any 
case, Shame TV really lives up to its name. Shame for everyone, not just 
the person who did the crime.

Is the concept of Shame TV even ethical? I point to the case of David Cash. 
In September 1998, Cash watched his best friend Jeremy Strohmeyer kidnap 
and assault 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Las Vegas Casino. Cash did not 
participate in the subsequent murder, but he did not report it, and he even 
tried to cover his friend's tracks.

Cash is a cold-hearted, evil person, but he could never be charged with a 
crime. He was never punished in a court of law for what he did. But the 
situation caused the University of Berkeley, where Cash was a student, to 
recognize the value of shame. In Cash's case, shame was inflicted on him. 
His picture and details of the incident were circulated throughout the 
community. He became the target of harassment. He was chased out of a 
fraternity party by an angry mob. Cash's attorney said, "Nobody is going to 
drive David Cash out of here unless he's carried out on a gurney." It may 
just come to that.

The residents of Berkeley apparently saw no difference between justice, and 
mob justice. Cash may never be punished in a court, but is that any reason 
to string him up from a redwood tree? Somebody may need to double-check my 
math, but two wrongs don't make a right.

So there must be an alternative to Shame TV. Perhaps that alternative 
should be Rich's Front Porch of Justice. I could stand out on my porch and 
shout out the names of people who have annoyed me. Then my neighbors would 
realize that it is their civic duty to shame these offenders. A brilliant 
solution. It may even have more viewers than Charlotte's cable station.

Targets of the first episode: the Charlotte City Council - the people who 
spend an evening debating semantics ("Do you think it should be called 
Shame TV? That sounds so negative.") instead of considering the 
consequences of such a move.

And therein lies the shame of it all. This whole topic is terrible. There 
is a clear difference between shame and being ashamed of someone else. 
Shame TV targets the latter.

I leave you with something to ponder: How is Shame TV any different than 
the stocks and pillories of Colonial America, which today would surely be 
classified as cruel and unusual punishment?

And what if the face on Shame TV were that of your family member? Would you 
still think it's a good idea?
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart