Have you heard the news? Crime and punishment is taking on a new tool: public shame. What’s that you say? This is far from new? Well, not the way they are going about it. We aren’t talking about building a stockade or parading criminals out in the streets with funny signs to be battered by rotten fruit- this isn’t the 1600′s. In a move that will have you saying ‘It’s about time’, in some places, local criminal cases and their mugshots are now available in a Facebook profile.

Just think, now when someone is hauled into the precinct to have their fingers printed, likeness captured from multiple angles, and the whole rigamarole, the details will be available online at your local police departments Facebook profile. Of course, this has yet to become a wide spread practice. Right now, Evesham, New Jersey is one of the few places employing this tactic. It has possibilities and frankly, I think we are all surprised this step has not been taken sooner.

Why should celebrities be the only ones to have their face plastered all over the main waterholes online? Sure, they may not get in much trouble, but everyone knows when they do something wrong. Well, soon that bit of public shame may be available for the criminals in every town. The real question is: How quickly will this new practice spread through New Jersey and what kind of results is it supposed to produce?

Is it being done to help our hardworking civil servants catch the bad guys? Is this new method of public humiliation for keeping the local communities informed for their own protection? Or is this just what it looks like, an old practice of public shame revamped for modern times?