overpunish
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Verb
[edit]overpunish (third-person singular simple present overpunishes, present participle overpunishing, simple past and past participle overpunished)
- (transitive) To punish excessively; to issue a punishment that is harsher than necessary.
- 1976 March 1, Ralph S. Welsh, “VIOLENCE, PERMISSIVENESS THE OVERPUNISHED CHILD”, in Journal of Pediatric Psychology, volume 1, number 2, , page 68:
- After each one of the two cards has been presented, the overpunished child will invariably say that the father (or mother) is going to hit the child with a belt, or fist, or some other implement; the child will feel bad; the child will be mad at the parent; and the child will want to run away, or less commonly, want to strike the parent back.
- 2013 July 29, Maggie Livingstone, “Jeffries to address ‘oversentencing’ in U.S. justice system”, in The Chautauquan Daily[1]:
- The United States currently incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. John C. Jeffries Jr., today’s morning lecturer, will propose ways to combat a prison system that often “oversentences and overpunishes.”
- 2016, Robert Cyran, Richard Beales, NY TIMES, “Unpacking Wolf Packs”, in the yale law journal[2], volume 125, number 773:
- Such analysis introduces significant legal uncertainty and may lead to excessive deterrence against wolf packing. In an increasingly crowded activist market, there is a real risk of overpunishing wolf-pack activism: stock prices may suffer due to increased market uncertainty over the legality and potential success of activist campaigns, including those that may yield value for shareholders.
- 2017, Sharon Dolovich, Alexandra Natapoff, The New Criminal Justice Thinking, page 61:
- The emphasis on prosecution and conviction as metrics of success leads police and prosecutors to overarrest, overprosecute, and overpunish low-level drug and other crimes in many cases.