This is not intended to be a punitive measure.

News that two people who had a harrowing break-up are now trying to get back together again a few months or years down the line tends, among sensible people, to raise at the very least suspicion, if not outright irritation and despair. Why are these two cursed lovers heading back to the old chaos and drama? Isn't this just a fantasy sprung from naivety, loneliness and most probably short-term lust? Shouldn't they keep faith with their original choice, double down on the highs and lows of dating and perhaps each buy a dog? And yet, to deny ex-couples any legitimate chance to revisit their situation also feels excessively punitive and in its way naïve, insisting blindly that people can never change, that psychotherapy and introspection, books and conversations, time and long walks have nothing whatsoever to teach us, is as foolish as to assume that change can come readily and lightly. For every misguided attempt to resume a relationship, there must be a proportion of equally misguided refusals to countenance a new start, born not out of wisdom so much as pre-emptive fear and disbelief that people are, occasionally, able to learn a new thing or two. We need to make progress a tool with which to strip the matter of sentiment and rationally distinguish mature from sentimental plans. What follows is a sequence of questions, amounting to a kind of examination, that exes who are meeting up again after a long break should discuss with one another – and as importantly, with themselves – before coming anywhere near to holding hands, let alone – and here we must be very definitive – going to bed.

This is James Foreman Jr., Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the book "Locking Up Our Own." There's a connection between the overly punitive gun sentencing laws that were passed in the 1970s, 1980s, and

All this does is postpone temporarily what will likely be a series of punitive import taxes put on U.S.

Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion.

They think there's time in that time to do some deals, so it won't be so punitive.

And, you know, teaching a child manners and going through the learning process shouldn't be a punitive process.

Or, the parent might only lend the child a very harsh, punitive way of interpreting itself, repeatedly suggesting that the child is ill-intentioned or no good.

But I think what seems at least distinct to me and I am a younger guy, I guess, but it seems like this kind of formalization in Washington and in certain strains of politics of saying, "Really, greed is good," or, "We don't care about," or, "Poor people should be punished," or, "We should cut food stamps," really just in this kind of punitive and nasty way.

and I think it kind of goes back to the idea of punitive consequences for a crime like murder.