Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules. Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programs set up by police. A local lawyer was quoted saying "It's a principle of law that a penalty should match the seriousness of the crime".Jaywalking is a way of life in major Chinese cities, where crossing roads legally can be a hair-raising battle of nerves with oncoming cars disinclined to give way to pedestrians. Traffic police recorded 7.78 million jaywalking violations at Shanghai intersections in the first eight months of 2008.
The scheme had come under fire from lawyers who said public humiliation was too steep a punishment for jaywalking and warned of defamation lawsuits against police.
The interesting thing about all this is that during the 1700 and 1800’s similar punishments were very common in Northern Europe- the log punishment, whereby the person being punished has his or her legs firmly shackled in logs and placed outside the church door along the roadside for public inspection, or the pillory which consisted of hinged wooden boards that formed holes through which the head and/or various limbs were inserted and the boards locked together to secure the captive. These pillories were set up in marketplaces and crossroads to hold petty criminals, often with a placecard detailing the crime nearby.
They do say that fashion is cyclical and it would seem that this is also the case for public humiliation as punishment. Then again- the British tabloids have been around for awhile so perhaps it’s not a new or reoccurring trend after all.
