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In criminology, the reintegrative shaming theory emphasizes the importance of shame in criminal punishment. The theory holds that punishments should focus on the offender’s behavior rather than on the offender. It was developed by Australian criminologist John Braithwaite at Australian National University in 1989.

In the book, Crime, Shame and Reintegration, John Braithwaite introduced the concept of reintegrative shaming; it was the alternative theory of the labeling theory. Within the theory, the shame is used as a tool which reinforces an offender's morality that is supposed to exist in its society by the criminal justice system. Regarding to Braithwaite's argument, Western criminal justice institutions and criminological theory have diminished the value of social hostility - shaming on offenders' behaviors. In addition, the theory was based on the idea: when justice interventions clearly show the socially antagonistic responses while reintegrating them into the law-obeying society, justice intervention would eventually decrease the rate of reoffending.

Two types of shaming
John Braithwaite differentiated between two different kinds of shaming: reintegrative shaming and stigmatic shaming. Reintegrative shaming is intended to strengthen the offenders' sense of belonging in their community in which the law-abiding citizens live. This shaming blames on the offender's misconducts rather than the offender; however, offenders are considered as outcasts in the stigmatic shaming. Stigmatic shame does not put any emphasis on the offenders' restoration -this is an opposite characteristic of reintegrative shaming. John, therefore, concluded that citizens who are treated with reintegrative shaming rarely commit crimes; societies which contain high degrees of reintegrative shaming have lower crime rates than societies with stigmatic shaming.

Two main components
Reintegrative shaming is comprised of two main components: shaming of the offenders' misconducts and reintegration of the offenders into the society in which law-abiding citizens live.Shaming, as a social process, shows the hostility of committing taboos which can possibly generates moral regret. In this sense, shaming eventually moralizes offenders and help them to recognize their misconducts. A shameful act is connected with the forgiveness in order to allow offenders to maintain their community membership and reintegrate into the community.