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Psychologist James Gilligan argues that there is a common emotional experience shared by all perpetrators of violent crime: shame. According to Gilligan, shame is also the primary motivation behind government-sanctioned punishments. Crime and punishment share a common purpose: to annihilate shame and restore self-respect. The result: violent crime never ends. Punishment of violent criminals replaces public shame with pride, and the community feels better now that "something has been done." But punishment does not heal shame; it only hands it back to the criminal, who must commit more violent crime in order to correct what he perceives as an injustice done to him by the authorities.

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