Can Punishment Sometimes Be Effective in Modifying Children's Behaviour?

Abstract

Professor Green's paper, 'Does punishment work with children?', is interesting in itself. Why does he not broaden it to include adults? If punishment were ineffective with adults, and children are young adults or about to be adults, then society is totally wrong in any punishment it uses in dealing with adults. Nevertheless, societies throughout the world continue to use punishment as a form of vengeance or in seeking conformity to established norms of behaviour. Societies usually establish forces whose sole job is to detect offenders in circumstances which will eventually lead to their punishment. These are generally police forces. The police rarely reward individuals for doing something well; on the whole their raison d'etre is to seek out those who do not conform to the laws of society.