Shame, even more than the physical pain of the lash and the stocks, was the salient ingredient in corporal punishment. But as communities grew and became more impersonal, the loosening of community bonds lessened the sting of shame. It is so today with the revival of chain gangs. Recent alternatives to imprisonment have included fines and sentencing to community service. However, both are inadequately expressive of condemnation.
Fines condemn ambivalently because they seem to put a price on behavior rather than proscribe it.
The dissonance in community-service sentences derives from the fact that they fail to say something true, that the offenders deserve severe condemnation, and that they say something false, that community service, an admirable activity that many people perform for pleasure and honor, is a suitable way to signify a criminal's disgrace. Sentences that shame not only do reputational harm and lower self-esteem, their consequences can include serious financial hardship. Today America has 519 people imprisoned for every 100,000 citizens. The figures for Mexico and Japan are 97 and 36 respectively. America needs all the prison cells it has and will need more.