Name and Shame: Public Exposure as a Deterrent for Petty Crimes and Repeat Offenders

In a world where the criminal is coddled and the victim is forgotten, the idea of naming and shaming offenders is treated as barbaric, while crime itself is rationalised, excused, and subsidised. But here’s the hard truth, public exposure works. It works not because it destroys lives, but because it interrupts cycles of impunity. It replaces vague moral appeals with real social consequence.

For the repeat thief, the serial vandal, the harasser, the fare-evader, or the loiterer who escalates to assault, the greatest deterrent is not a lecture, not a lenient magistrate, and certainly not another taxpayer-funded “diversion program.” It’s the fear that everyone will know what they did. That their face, name, and behaviour will no longer hide behind confidentiality clauses or bureaucratic protection. They can joke with their friends and get Facebook famous and Tik Tok Trendy, covering their faces and sharing their exploits with their friends, but when their family, potential partners and employers find out, then all hell breaks loose, and now it’s a breach of their privacy, get real!

Public exposure pierces what every repeat offender relies on, anonymity. When crime becomes a private matter, shielded by endless privacy laws and risk-averse administrators, the perpetrator thrives. But when the community sees the face of the one who spit on a cashier, smashed a shopfront, or terrorised a bus driver, the rules change.

The critics, usually from ivory towers, and academic social science majors and social justice advocates, not loading docks, say this is cruel. They say it breeds stigma. What they never address is the cost of silence. The shopkeeper driven out of business, the staff member who quits after the third assault, the woman who avoids public transport after being groped by a “known youth” who was never named. Silence doesn’t protect the vulnerable, it protects the violent, it protects the predators.

Let’s get one thing straight, naming and shaming is not vengeance. It is a tool of deterrence rooted in human psychology. People fear social judgement. They fear losing face. They fear the disapproval of their neighbours more than the signature of a magistrate. In tight-knit communities, reputation is everything, and the threat of public exposure can do what a hundred court orders cannot, prevent the next incident.

The data supports this. In areas where petty crimes and antisocial behaviours are publicised, through community watch bulletins, retailer alerts, or digital offender boards, recidivism drops. Offenders move on, or better yet, clean up. Not because they’ve been rehabilitated, but because they’ve been recognised.

More importantly, the public gains back something the justice system has stolen from them, awareness. When names are hidden and patterns are buried, the community loses its ability to defend itself. People walk blind. Businesses hire in the dark. Women commute without knowing that the man beside them has multiple warnings for violence. That’s not safety. That’s a social experiment in denial.

Those who oppose naming and shaming often argue that it ruins lives. But ask yourself this, whose life is already being ruined, quietly, invisibly, and with full bureaucratic sanction? It's not the offender. It's the family dealing with the aftermath. The elderly man punched on his morning walk. The teenager robbed on a train. The security officer attacked and told to file a report instead of act.

The offender gets a clean record. The victim gets a trauma counsellor.I’m not stating this as someone who has no past, no failures, no sins, I’ve a past, I don’t live there and where ever possible I’ve made amends, compensated those I’ve wronged and apologised for those I over-punished.

Naming and shaming doesn’t need to be theatrical. It needs to be factual. Clear images. Brief descriptions. Local distribution. It empowers staff, informs citizens, and pressures offenders to stop, or face escalating exposure.

And for those who say “everyone deserves a second chance,” remember this, I agree with you but it’s usually their fifth. It’s not the young man who made one mistake who ends up on these lists. It’s the one who made twenty, and never paid for any of them.

Security is not about hiding problems. It’s about confronting them. Quietly covering up repeat offenders in the name of "restorative justice" only restores one thing, the offender’s confidence that nothing will happen.

When people know they’ll be seen, when they know their actions have public consequences, behaviour changes. It always has. Because shame, real, earned, proportionate shame, is a moral compass in communities where the courts have lost theirs.

So, let’s stop tiptoeing around the egos of offenders and start standing up for those who’ve suffered in silence. Name them. Shame them. And watch the petty crimes drop. From the author.

The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security and Risk Consultant with 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. Sam has trained over 1,000 entry level security personnel, taught defensive tactics, weapons training and handcuffs to policing personnel and the public. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organisations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.