when i was a kid, in 2nd grade (age 7) i and some other kids made a mess in one of the bathrooms at school and the teachers instead of doing the normal canned "punishments" like having to skip lunch recess and sit still inside doing work, had us sit down with the janitors and they talked to us and the janitors explained the work they normally needed to do every day to clean the bathroom, and how what we did created extra work for them. and they took us into the bathroom and showed us what they do and how what we did made it more difficult.
and then they made us clean it all up (with help from the janitors because we were small kids and couldn't even reach everything, we had like thrown toilet paper high up and stuff) and they were very nice about it and there was no further punishment or mention of it again
and the things i took from this experience were:
i never trashed any shared or public space ever again in my life, even in the smallest way
i developed great respect for janitors which i have kept to this day
i think there are a lot of people who could benefit from this sort of experience.
our society often has so many problems not only because we insulate some people from the implications of their actions, but also because instead of facing them with those implications, we impose outside "punishments" that are often unrelated to the original wrongdoing.
like if they had not done what they did with us, and instead had just taken away our recess and made us do something boring and unpleasant, we wouldn't have learned what we did and we would have just learned that we need to get better at avoiding getting caught, which is generally how people respond to punishments that are divorced from explanations of how and why what you did was wrong and hurt people. if instead you confront people with those things, they will change of their own accord.
some adults out there are like full-grown children who never learned this stuff. but the solution isn't harsh punishment like putting them in jail and mistreating them there, the solution is that people need to be sat down with the people who are harmed by their actions and then they can work together to undo the damage, and see firsthand how hard it is.
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