One effect of living backwards in Looking-Glass world is that the punishment precedes the trial, which precedes the crime. Alice and the White Queen debate the value of such an order, with Alice taking the side that there is something wrong with punishing a person who hasn’t yet committed an offence. The White Queen believes that whether or not the person commits the offence is immaterial: all the better if after their punishment and trial they do not commit the offence, from her point of view.