A letter from Singapore: The corrective work order: A misguided attempt at using shame as punishment

Abstract

One of the punishments available in Singapore for the offence of littering is to require the offender to spend a specified number of hours picking up litter in a public place (called the 'Corrective Work Order'). This punishment has two main aims: it forces the offender to make amends, and, perhaps more importantly, it serves to shame the offender in public.When this punishment was introduced in 1992, there was some disquiet in Singapore over the exposure of the offender to public humiliation. Since then, there has been great interest in many parts of the world in the incorporation of shame in criminal justice systems.The author argues that not only is the Corrective Work Order too severe, it has also failed to adopt the positive features of the 'reintegrative shaming' approach tried out in various forms in different parts of the world. A preliminary analysis also shows that the Corrective Work Order has not been effective in curbing the rise in litter offenders in Singapore. This paper traces the origins of the Corrective Work Order and its implementation, and makes some tentative conclusions as to why the order has not been effective. © 2003 Perpetuity Press Ltd.