[Skybird]

I'm a big fan - especially when coming from a behavioristic campsite - of public pillory punishement.

I also would completely abandoned so-called suspended sentences, because psychologically they make no sense. A just imagined aversive stimulus can only have a - reduced - effect if the delinquent knows what the penalty feels like from earlier real experiences. But in case of a repeated offence, you would not find it reasonable to make the second punishment a suspended one when the first one has been real. If you want a first-time offender give a warning only, do not suspend sentences, but make them milder or shorter. But suspended sentences - the idea behind that is seriously flawed.

On the Chinese, nothing new. But as long as media-intensive hypes and highly emotionally led battles between revenge-seeking defenders and opposers of the death penalty in the US exist, I would recommend to not throw with stones while sitting in a glass house. And the European way of "speaking justice" does not convince me either, too often the interests of an attacker get put above that of his past or future victims. I have issues with the Chinese legal system, yes - but that they show murderers on TV is not one of them. Do not forget, these guys they executed, were no saints or victims - they were murderers. So, the blame and the shame is theirs, rightfully.