In this chapter we draw out some of the most important policy implications that might follow if the theory of reintegrative shaming is correct. The theory, we will see, suggests a general principle of effectiveness in social control. Whether it is parents socializing children, teachers dealing with students, police with juveniles or regulatory bureaucrats with business executives, social control that is cold and punitive is not the way to go, nor is social control that is warm and permissive. Rather the strategy of first choice should be social control that is warm and firm, with shaming rather than pain-infliction providing the firmness needed in all but extreme situations.

Clearly, there are many more implications of the theory than those highlighted in this chapter. The purpose of the chapter is not to outline a systematic treatment of policy implications; that would follow more appropriately upon testing the empirical adequacy of the theory. Nor will a critique be advanced of the major alternatives to the moralizing model of criminal justice policy – the ‘justice’ model and other retributive models, the deterrence model of the criminal as amoral calculator, the medical model of the criminal as pathological and other rehabilitative models. Rather, my intention is to show that the theory is significant in that it puts important policy concerns in a new light and makes some interesting predictions about what crime control policies will work.