It depends on what your goal of punishment is. if it's to gain some sense of retaliation, revenge - then i think you will find there is no way to do this without isolation.

but, if it's about retribution, i think you can find ways to necessarily incorporate a soft criminal into society in ways that keep him (or her) helping said society. Building homes for needy families who they can meet, and see what they've done; offering services to shut ins, etc.

i do think you have to be careful who you pair up with whom, cause it's easy to say to yourself "i'm better than these expletive homeless, cause i have a damn job", and then you actually reinforce the isolation and teh sense of entitlement. but people who have cancer; people who have lost children to gang violence; people who went to war and came home without legs or arms - might be good places for soft criminals, first and second time offenders, etc., to give in retribution and learn about themselves and society.

it's a costly process, though. requires lots of work on teh part of state, social welfare programs, and parole type officers. so it will never happen.

The Quakers in Philadelphia believed that isolation with time of reflection and prayer is actually more humane that chain gangs and work camps so they designed a famous prison there that carried out their ideas that the inner light of spiritual transformation is encouraged with time alone. It was not a success. Many religious traditions value isolation and retreat as necessary to get back into a proper relationship with a higher ethical law, since immersion in the world, and espeically the criminal world just reinforces bad influences. I totally agree. Unfortunately our penal system is not about isolation and relfection its about throwing people into criminal training grounds. Another thing is temperment: I would love solitary confinement and hate being thrown into the yard to fend off the other prisoners. Others hate solitary life and thrive in machinations of the prison pecking order.

I personally wonder when the idea of "punishment with isolating"/prison first appeared in human history? It seems to me that cave men didn't bother about sending people to prison. If somebody did something wrong, the tribe just punish him on the spot, in a rather physical and direct way. Don't misunderstand me! I don't say we should go back to that time but perhaps we should consider using less prison terms and instead for example, deprive citizens from part of their rights for some period of time.

you can't; our society is set up that being outside of it is the basis for punishment. hasn't always been this way but it is right now. criminal means "them" - i.e. not us.

i am with kip, you can learn a lot from foucault on this point. RD Laing also has a lot to say from the angle of schizophrenia.

I was happy to find this tribe and this interesting thread.

Richard said:
It seems to me one of the more perplexing problems of our times is how to punish people for behavior that hurts others or society as a whole without isolated that person which may result in further bad behavior and further isolation possibly self-imposed isolation.

I reply:
If Richard is implying a jail or prision sentence, I would ask if punishment is the purpose of prison. Perhaps prison is used as a rehabilition to change their behavior or perhaps prison is just a way to get people separated from society. The question could be what is the purpose of prison, or what should we do with criminals.

Richard said:
This is happening in the context where justice favors some and in cases protects certain people from any sort of punishment. Many people would say the injustice causes quite a bit of bad behavior.

I reply:
I don't understand the relationship between "how to punish without isolating" and "where justice favors some and in cases protects certain people from any sort of punishment." It seems to be two different topics, but perhaps I am not understanding the post.

Another thing I don't understand is how the quote thing works here. Obviously.

Punish them in public like a mother spanks her child in a grocery store. Humility is a good tool sometimes.

You know, I see nothing wrong with having them work for their trespass doing community services. Yeah, some chain gangs were wretched, but just because some people were merciless task masters that drove their men through the sun all day no matter the heat or cold does not mean that doing honest work to repay society is a bad idea. You can sentence inmates to labor and still allow them basic worker's rights. It also has the chance of teaching inmates useful skills and providing them with work experience for when they leave prison.