Two public shaming cases - one in Ohio and the other in California - made news last week, raising the question of whether humiliation is an effective way to discipline.

In 2012, a Cleveland Judge named Pinkey Carra made a woman wear an "idiot" sign in public for driving around a school bus. Last week, she made news again by calling for the public shaming of Richard Dameron, 58, who was sentenced to 90 days in jail for threatening officers.After his release, the judge ordered him to stand in front of a precinct with a sign apologizing to officers. The sign says "I was being an idiot and it will never happen again."Carr says that sometimes she has to get creative to get through to people.The second shaming case, which involved 34 members of the senior class at North High School in Bakersfield, Calif., was more controversial. Two truancy officers publicly humiliated the students in front of their peers because they were not eligible to graduate.After hearing their name called at an assembly, they were told to stand up and look at the other students who were graduating and say goodbye."As you walk away, keep looking and keep in mind what you're sacrificing," one of the officers said. His intent was to encourage those not yet eligible to graduate to complete whatever they needed to in order to receive their diploma.Though the speech was meant to motivate students, many felt the truancy officer's tactic was over the top. Some teachers were upset and apologized to each one of their classes for the humiliation. The school district issued a formal apology to students and parents for the incident.Feedback on social media was mixed. One adult outsider backed the truant officers, stating that "hurt feelings are small price to pay if it leads to a diploma."A professional teacher from outside the district, however, found it appalling, saying there was no way to know what was going on in the lives of those students that caused them to be in their situation.In the first case, the shaming of the Ohio adult was deserving. In the second, without knowing the individual circumstances, we have trouble with the Scarlet Letter approach of having high school students marched and humiliated in front of their peers.By Jim Zbickeditor@tnonline.com