Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

In primary schools, as in life, there will be mistakes made by students and consequences delivered, usually by teachers (sometimes by the students’ peers). Some of these mistakes may be judged as intentional behaviours designed to cause harm or hurt to the 'victims'. Other mistakes may be spontaneous, thoughtless actions with little regard for the possible outcomes to the 'victims' or the 'perpetrator'. Other behaviours that cause harm or hurt maybe complete accidents, with the result being similar to intentional or spontaneous actions.

If the behaviours are similar, yet the harm or hurt varies, should the consequences or punishment be the same? Or do we punish people based on the severity of the harm or hurt? These questions apply to the school context as well as the sporting fields and the justice systems for society.

So, I ask does the punishment fit the crime? Or may be the question should be: Does the ‘punishment’ fit the harm caused from the behaviour? (Note I have put punishment in inverted commas as the term punishment often refers to punitive outcomes, designed to ‘hurt’ the perpetrator of the behaviour. Current thoughts around managing behaviours may refer to disciplinary actions or restorative consequences, designed to teach the perpetrator alternatives to the previous behaviours.)

As schools are a microcosm of society, there will be debates as to whether or not the consequences and punishment fit the inappropriate behaviour. Let's be clear, the consequence of a behaviour could be an injury, could be hurt - physical or emotional, or it could be isolation. These are a direct result of the behaviour. Once a disciplinarian gets involved, there are likely to be sanctions or punishments imposed, hopefully with the intent to teach the perpetrator a lesson, that their behaviour was not appropriate and what were alternative behaviours. As with society, there will be debate as to whether or not the punishment fits the crime.

Using a sporting analogy, if a player gets injured as a result of an illegal act by their opponent, does the opponent get sanctioned based on the act or based on the severity of the injury caused by the act? Sports analysts often talk about the intent of an action by one player towards another player. This is fraught with danger as the analysts are suggesting they can read the mind of the first player. The same sports analysts will often debate whether a player should be sanctioned based on the injury of the opponent. And suffice to say, opinions vary.

As it is in primary schools (and possibly high schools), teachers are often asked or expected to ‘punish’ a student, based on the impact of their behaviour, not simply the behaviour. When parents of the 'victim' remind school staff of the impact of the behaviour as the basis for what they expect will be the sanctions, they are asking the staff to react to the impact, not the behaviour itself. (Similarly in society we often expect the punishment to be based on the impact of the behaviour, not the behaviour itself.)

For example, if a student punches a peer and the peer is hardly hurt, then the punishment may be less severe than if the peer sustained a significant injury from the punch. If the peer falls, sustains a head injury then school staff may be compelled to issue significant sanction, based on the injury. Why? We have become accustomed to expecting and issuing sanctions based on impact of the behaviour. Is this reasonable? The other complication when determining appropriate sanctions for inappropriate student behaviour is the degree of intent of the perpetrator to cause harm.

In primary schools, my experience has rarely seen intentional harmful behaviour from students, designed to hurt a fellow student. There have been countless occasions where students have caused harm to other students, often through thoughtless and impulsive actions, with little regard for the outcome on themselves or the ‘victim’. There have been some occasions when students have retaliated to another student, with the intent of inflicting a message of their displeasure at the other student’s actions. These retaliatory actions were intentional and possibly designed to cause some hurt. My experience would suggest these types of behaviours are in the minority of all inappropriate behaviours.

Please understand I am excluding legitimate bullying from this article as it falls into a different category of behaviour that must meet three criteria to be considered bullying: Intentionally targeting someone, repetitive and with a power differential. Lots of inappropriate behaviour at schools are NOT bullying. The behaviours may be harmful, yet they should not mislabelled bullying, unless all three criteria are met.

Teachers and school leaders can only issue sanctions IF they know about the inappropriate behaviour. After doing a suitable ‘investigation’ of the students’ actions and understanding the probable intent and acknowledging the harm caused, the staff must then determine a sanction. The original question remains - should the sanction be based on the harm caused or the original behaviour? Another phrasing might be - should the punishment be based on the victim’s response or the perpetrator’s first action?

Be assured there is no easy answer to this question and hence this topic is one of the challenging aspects of school leadership. Along with the expectations from staff and students for there to be relevant sanctions for the student who misbehaved, there are also the values and expectations of the parents of the ‘victim’ and the parents of the ‘perpetrator’. Another complicating factor is the profile of the students involved in the interaction. Does a student’s ‘reputation’ for misbehaviour warrant a more severe sanction, than a ‘first-time offender’ of the same behaviour?

Many schools have clear, concise behaviour matrixes, which may describe the expected ‘good’ behaviours in the various contexts (locations/ settings) in which students behave at school. Even with such explicit plans, it often relies on the professional judgement of the teachers and school leaders to determine the sanctions for inappropriate behaviour. And this is quite OK. As it is in society, some discernment and professional judgement from the law makers and law enforcers in responding to behaviours is appropriate. Guidelines exist to guide the law enforcers and those issuing the sanctions. We cannot and must not remove the human element in managing the behaviour of students (nor adults), There is always a story behind a behaviour.

While many teachers and parents would like to live with the certainty that an inappropriate behaviour will result in the prescribed punishment, life is not that clinical. Human behaviour is not that predictable and hence my original question must remain unanswered.

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Image by Kat Wilcox