Study Suggests Place For Public Punishment

Someone cuts in front of you during your work commute.  If you could punish them, would you?  And, would it do any good in their future behavior?  You should read this article about the effects of public-administered punishment during research games.  Summarizing criminally...
They aimed to find out whether over a longer time punishment could actually improve co-operation by organising a series of public goods experiments. For the experiment, groups of three people were given 20 tokens which they could keep or contribute to a public good. Each token kept was worth one money unit (MU) to the holder and each token invested was worth 0.5 MUs for each group member. 
Individuals could choose to give up one MU in exchange for deducting three MUs from another group member's 'earnings' to punish them if they haven't invested enough for the greater good of the group. 
The experiment was broken into two time periods in which the experiment was carried out either 10 or 50 times. These 'short' and 'long' games were carried out both with a punishment element and without. 
Overall, co-operation was higher where players were able to punish each other. This is because people were willing to punish free riders, and this helped induce co-operative behaviour. 
Differences in results from the short and long games also suggest that people behave differently, depending on whether they see themselves working in that group over the short term or the long term. While punishment was moderately harmful in the short games — where the experiment was carried out only 10 times — it was highly beneficial in the long games. 
http://www.physorg.com/news147705684.html

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