I've said it before in another thread about 'The Hunger Games' trilogy holding so many parallels to the WTBTS (for anyone who hasn't read the books, I highly recommend them).
Of course in The Hunger Games it's the Capitol... who use severe punishment as means of control over the population of Panem. As they began to lose that control, the Capitol's response was to enforce more punishment... which only gave those rebeling with more cause to rebel in the first place as they were then in a position of 'nothing left to lose, everythinig to fight for'.
I wonder if these emphasis on shunning in particular that they have been making of late being a sign that they may be going a similar way?