Common Ideas About Punishment Punishment as a value, a ritual, a cultural norm, and a practice is deeply embedded in the dominant, colonial culture in which we live. I suspect it is embedded in many other cultures as well. It is so deeply woven in, such an automatic and engrained response, that many of us rarely or never think to question it. Yet punishment has a specific logic and represents a specific worldview. In workshopping and talking about transformative justice in many different places with many different people, I've noticed what I believe are three common, interlinked ideas about punishment that form the basis of dominant ideas about harm and justice: First, that punishment protects us from harm. Second, that punishment teaches us not to harm, And finally, that punishment has the power to morally cleanse, transform, and heal us from the effects of harm. I think it is important to move gently and care-fully when speaking about punishment and potential alternatives. There is an important wisdom threaded into punishment, revenge, and the longing for retribution. Yet if we can hold on to this wisdom while also gently questioning what a society based around punishment really offers us, perhaps we can start to envision a different and better way.