Jennifer Montgomery, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Clive Aspin, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Care and protection residences are meant to help children with nowhere else to go. Instead, official reports show those kids are experiencing increased serious physical, sexual or emotional harm.
Mesopotamia’s prisons were built for detaining people, not punishing them. But they shaped powerful ideas about justice and reform that aren’t so different from today’s.
What people consider to be fair and just today are in line with the laws of ancient Mesopotamia and the Tang Dynasty in China – suggesting that these intuitions are part of human nature.
Convicted rapist Jayden Meyer was given a nine months home detention, sparking protests and an appeal from crown prosecutors. But the sentence is in line with the law. Is it time for change?
People penalized for violating a group’s shared rules could go on to disrupt its functioning, out of revenge. Two scholars suggest a way of imposing rules.
Sidhu is not being deported as punishment. He is being removed because he has been positioned as a foreigner in Canada who has lost the privilege to remain.
Ancient Christian and Jewish texts threatened women with hellfire if they stepped out of line – and those terrifying visions still resonate in U.S. society today.
Abuse, neglect or witnessing violence at home can lead kids to misbehave. Some schools are doing away with expulsions to focus on childhood trauma instead.
Infection rates of COVID-19 have soared among prisoners in the US. An expert on penal policy considers what is ‘unjust and disproportionate’ punishment at this time.
Those living in rural areas have more punitive attitudes toward crime and how to control it than city-dwellers, and it’s a major component of the growing urban-rural divide in Canada.
Do children understand the lesson that if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours? Developmental psychologists suggest they’re more likely to punish bad behavior than they are to reward good deeds.
How do jurors use different kinds of information about mental illness when making sentencing decisions? An experiment finds that neurobiological evidence could harm or help defendants.
As more parents turn to social media to post videos of themselves punishing their children, an educational psychologist warns that the practice may cause more harm than good.
Director, Asian Law Centre, Comparative Legal Studies Program; Associate Director, Vietnam; Director of Studies, Asian Law, The University of Melbourne