Humilation as punishment

I heard a snippet of a news story this morning on Breakfast, and became rather curious. It seems that a school in Christchurch makes students wear orange overalls when doing detention cleanup. There has been a complaint that this is a form of humiliation, and therefore shouldn't be done: The New Zealand Parent Teacher Association (NZPTA) says the practice is unacceptable humiliation that makes the students stand out unfairly. It begs the question of what the purpose of punishing students is. Is detention a deterrent, to stop other students offending, is it reparation for crimes committed against the institution or other students, or is it some sort of rehabilitative process? If it's a deterrent, making it unpleasant is a basic requirement. Taken to an extreme this would entail all sorts of Abu Ghraib atrocities, but the question remains - if you want to put other students off, is making an example of students who've done stuff wrong acceptable? If it's a matter of paying society back, then wearing overalls whilst picking up rubbish may have a practical side to it that allows the students to really throw themselves into the tasks at hand. If we aim to reform these students, then getting up close and personal with rubbish may be an eye-opening experience. To me, it comes down to two conflicting drives: *We all want our students to learn to do the right thing (gain academic skills, not damage other people's property, be acceptably respectful in their interactions with others), and a lot of the time that involves coercing them into doing things they don't want to do. *NZ has a very high rate of teenage suicide, and we all remember how painful it was to be singled out or ridiculed as a teenager (most of the incidents of ridicule I remember came from my close friends, then the year-group as a whole). Our society has decided that physical punishment is not acceptable, so depriving students of time, contact with friends, or other liberties are the main tools we can use*. So, do we accept clean-up duty with overalls? Are we crushing the self-esteem of fragile children by making them conspicuous? If so, does it serve the greater good of making detention an effective deterrent? *Actually, a stern tone of voice is far and away the most often used, and arguably most effective tool for correcting errant behaviour in teenagers that I've come across. PS - A colleague suggested that all detentions should involve the student completing a punctuation and close reading worksheet, or writing and proof-reading a piece of work. Those are the school-wide literacy focii for the year.