Punishment is an Australian television soap opera made by the Reg Grundy Organisation for Network Ten in 1981.
Attempts by the show's makers to differentiate the series from Prisoner saw Punishment imbued with greater realism; however, the formula did not attract high viewing figures.
[1] Grundy produced Punishment mainly to complement Prisoner in international sales, to a point that the pilot was initially telecast in the United States before debuting in Australia.
In 2020, Fiona Byrne of the Herald Sun included Punishment in her feature about "long forgotten Australian TV dramas that made viewers switch off.
[3] She noted that Network Ten "lost faith in its grim, dark drama" so they launched it in a poor timeslot, leading it to be pulled after only three episodes.