Slashdot Mirror
Murderer With "Aggression Genes" Gets Reduced Sentence
Noiser writes "New Scientist reports: 'In 2007, Abdelmalek Bayout admitted to stabbing and killing a man and received a sentence of 9 years and 2 months. An appeal court judge in Trieste, Italy, cut Bayout's sentence by a year after finding out he has gene variants linked to aggression.'"
Is personal responsibility compatible with atheism? Before you break out the troll mods, I ask this in seriousness. If we are nothing more than a chemical being, then where does personal responsibility come into play?
How is this train of thought any different for a theist? "If God's creations, enacting his will, then where does personal responsibility come into play?"
But if you go down that 'lack of free will' route, then crime was predestined, this subsequent capture was predestined, the judge was predestined to set that particular sentence too, and everything about the whole world is basically pointless.
So it's best to assume free will exists for practical purposes. Save the metaphysics for those insomniac nights (or take a philosophy degree).
Yes. I hold both these beliefs. The justice system is not about blame, it's about keeping criminals safe from society and (in my mind) rehabilitating them.
The U.S. justice system is founded on the monastery model of repentance. See: Michael Foucault, "Discipline & Punish". The modern-day U.S. prison system is an industrial model that seeks taxpayer rent in exchange for effectively perpetual incarceration for anything that may be classified in the public's eyes as a crime. (See: Ann Krueger's paper on "rent seeking").
You would be very hard pressed to find anyone conscious of what the system is who would describe the prison system as something that in any way rehabilitates. In the criminal justice industry (lawyers, police, judges, etc.) often it's called "criminal college": where one learns the trade and networks. The prison system stigmatizes and ostracizes - it makes travel, finding a job, getting education all more difficult; it has no benefit for prisoners (in my opinion, and according to the three federal court judges I've asked this very question of). It also has questionable benefit or society - but that's a bigger question.
You would never blame a computer for a programmer's error, but you would try to fix the bugs, and if there was a dangerous bug you couldn't fix you wouldn't use that computer.
I agree. The prison system necessarily presumes culpability - i.e. that the criminal act was conducted of one's own free will. If it were otherwise the prison system would simply be segregation of those whose relationship with society is unacceptable because of factors they are unable to change - their genetics and/or environment, and our prison system would be analogous to apartheid.
There is some persuasive evidence that many crimes including aggression, theft, and abuse can all be linked to neurological/physiological traits. Unfortunately, it appears the NIH has little motivation to study neurological conditions giving rise to choice, as a result of their choice of head.
Alas, the barbaric industrial prison complex will continue. But make no mistake, it's barbaric.