Critical analysis on shame sanctions: humiliation, shame and loss of reputation in North-American and Brazilian experiences

• Grant number: 13/19656-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2014
• End date: December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Public Law
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo Saad Diniz
• Grantee: Julia Magalhães Jeuken
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Direito de Ribeirão Preto (FDRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Shame sanctions are returning to the modern Law as a manifestation of a punishment mechanism, especially as an expression of intense media intervention, and of the victimization process in a society marked by acute socioeconomic inequalities. This intriguing type of sanction, which has a pronounced retributive aspect, directly attacks the reputation of individuals and provokes on the public a strong sense of "done justice", as it represents a bad moral judgment of the "morally unstructured" offender. The research consists in the analysis of the manifestation and application of shame sanctions involving both (1) the historical analysis of the phenomenon to explain in what context and motivated by what causes the use of humiliation as a criminal sanction happens, and (2 ) the use of comparison, specifically observing the United States of America Law. From this analysis, the ways in which the shame sanctions take place will be highlighted, in order to specify the main classes of offenders who are more susceptible to loss of reputation. The rebirth of this historical way of punishment, by many seen as beneficial, especially because of the failure of the prison system, but also as a mechanism for ensuring trust in corporate investment area (the agents that remain in the market are only those whose reputation is good, and who operate within the guidelines of good governance), strikes a series of failures on many degrees of severity when they overcome essential values of the individual who loses his reputation, violating the Brazilian constitutional model. (AU)