Collective punishment is when a group is punished for the actions of one or a few individuals. It is often used in times of war and can lead to the targeting and extermination of entire communities. This type of punishment also occurs in milder forms, such as racial profiling. The Geneva Conventions recognize collective punishment as a war crime.
Collective punishment is a term used to refer to a situation in which a collective group of people is punished as retribution for the perceived offense of one individual of the group or for the offense of multiple individuals of the group. Collective punishment can also be a form of punishment where a group of people are punished due to activities that have occurred in close proximity, for example within their environment. This type of punishment does not distinguish between the innocent and the accused, and it also does not matter if the members of the group were unaware that such activity was taking place between them.
Widespread use of collective punishment occurs in times of war and instability. Collective punishment is also used in other situations as a means of retributive or collective punitive justice. For example, in times of war, entire members of a religious community or group may be targeted and exterminated for the alleged wrongdoing of a handful of few members in such communities. If some rebels emerge from a community to challenge an authoritarian leadership, these rebels may be driven out so that they can be caught and held up as examples to others who may be like-minded. If the rebels flee to their village, the entire village can be punished for the actions of a few.
This type of collective punishment also occurs in other, milder forms. In such situations, members of a group may be treated a certain way due to the actions of some group members. This type of collective punishment is also responsible for racial profiling where members of a certain race are treated as likely criminals and punished more severely than members of other races, even for the same crime category.
The same goes for religion, where members of certain faiths can be targeted for extermination based on certain actions of certain members of the religion. This type of collective punishment has led to the mass annihilation of members of a certain faith without any distinction between innocent children, women, infants and men. Such atrocities were recognized as war crimes under the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The Geneva Convention recognizing collective punishment as war crimes came after the mass killings that occurred in the aftermath of World War I and World War II .
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