The text argues that the formal, criminal justice mechanisms for dispensing punishment and the informal mechanisms and processes in homes, schools, and workplaces are all part of the same phenomenon. It notes that many punitive practices such as corporal and capital punishment were exported from imperialist Great Britain in past centuries. Punishments have also shifted over the past 200 years from the public spectacle of the stocks, the whip, or the gallows to the seclusion of the prison or the execution house. The book surveys a variety of psychological, physical, custodial, corporal, and capital punishments ranging from spanking at home and corporal punishment at school to physical restraint in mental hospitals. It notes that as punishment is examined more closely, the abuses come to the fore--and these abuses are the main argument against punishment. The text also argues that the implicit punitive content of judicial processes such as trials, as well as treatments such as behavioral therapy, may have as much psychological impact as punishments that are more explicitly physical. The final chapter considers ways for society to move beyond its widespread abuses of punishment and to reduce punishment while controlling serious crime. Index and approximately 600 references (Author summary modified)