Kin punishment

Kin punishment is the practice of punishing the family members of someone who is accused or suspected of committing a crime, either in place of or in addition to the perpetrator of the crime. It refers to the principle in which a family shares responsibility for a crime which is committed by one of its members, and it is a form of collective punishment. Kin punishment has been used as a form of extortion, harassment, and persecution by authoritarian and totalitarian states. Kin punishment has been practiced historically in Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, China, Japan, and South Korea; and presently in Israel and North Korea.