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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.'"
Maybe I wouldn't have lost my job if I could have proven I have a laziness gene.
... personal responsibility? Controlling our behaviour is one of the things that differentiates us from animals.
By that logic, isn't he more dangerous, and therefore should get a longer sentence? (Until a gene therapy solution comes out, anyway).
Seems a little bit backwards there.
If I'm actually genetically predisposed to violence, keeping me in society might not be the best course of action.
Seems to me, those that are _not_ predisposed to violence have a better chance of rehabilitating than those that aren't. Shouldn't they need less time in the slammer to rehabilitate?
Predisposed to violence = more time in?
Not Predisposed = less time in?
I have the fat gene....can i get a discount from McDonald's then since the gene is causing me to spend more money on food then i can afford?
It's the smell of free will going out the window, courtesy of people thinking that gene==unable to overcome that impulse. And with free will out the window, there's no liability. And with no liability... well, the court system we have is completely unworkable.
I was wondering when that issue was going to crop up. Thankfully, Italy seems bound to test just how much of a disaster that road will be.
The only solution to this is to ignore genetic predisposition when judging a convicted criminal.
Or, to put it differently: we have no choice but to believe in free will. Our society depends on it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Both of my grandpas are terribly addicted alcoholics, and my father is a regular drinker. I've been charged with underaged drinking before, so does this mean I couldn't really help it? ;)
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Prisons serve all three roles. Their existance is ment to be a deterrent to those that have not broken the law, punishment for those that have already broken the law, and protection of the rest of society from those who've demonstrated a willingness to break the law. The nature of the crime will effect to what extent the sentencing is intended to act as a punshment or protective role.
Sentencing of Blue and White colar criminals are going to be aimed at punishment and a warning to others that may be tempted to perpetrate similar acts (embezlement, breaking and entering, etc.). The ancillary effects of incarceration (loss of job, being ostrasized by friends/family, difficulty finding a job post incarceration) are as much part of the punishement as the actuall time spent in prison.
The sentencing of violent offenders is going to be targeted more at punishing the perpetrator and protecting the innocent. That's why they tend to have longer sentences and are locked up in higher security facilities than their blue collar compatriots. Rehabilitation is more important, but less successful with certain groups of violent criminals and thus they serve longer sentences and are occationally euthanized by the state (depending on where they are incarcerated).
The death penalty is the ultimate in both punishment of the criminal and protection of society, and IMO not to be used lightly. It should never be used for those that have not proven themselves to be violently dangerous to the rest of society (ie tax fraud doesn't deserve a needle, but repeated homocides does).
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
I have a gene variant linked to tickling policemen and, yet, they throw the book at me every time.
Society has been on a tear lately always looking to avoid personal responsibility and blame someone (or in this case, something else). For example,
--Kids aren't hyperactive or have too much energy. They have ADD and require Ritalin.
--Why isn't my kid cut out to do Algebra in 2nd grade? It's not that he/she might have a disposition for the arts, but that I need to blame the school and the teachers.
--"The Man" is holding me down. I find it odd that at my Fortune 500 company the "White male" is not the majority of VPs.
--I'm not fat, it's just that I have a genetic disposition to eat tons of crappy food and avoid exercise. My genes make me buy ice cream and not even take a 10minute walk around the neighborhood every day.
--I can't get a date b/c I have a genetic disposition to be single, and not because I want to date Hawaiian Tropic models and I look like Bill Gates and dress like a slob.
Damnit people, take a bit of responsibility, there's millions of cases out there of people finding their niche and succeeding or overcoming their obstacles to obtain greatness. I don't recall all the immigrants that came through Ellis Island in the early 1900s saying, "I can't be anything" and blamed everyone else.
There used to be an expression, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." I think to many people this now has become, "When the going gets tough, blame someone else."
...don't we need to keep him locked up *longer*, since he's more likely to do it again?
The alcholic who was drunk driving and killed someone should get a reduced sentence?
So when someone says, "A murderer deserves life imprisonment" what they mean is "I would feel better if that person was put in prison for life." I don't really see why people's feelings should be the basis for the criminal law system.
After you get stabbed 12 times, I'm pretty sure your pain receptors will cause a feeling of not wanting that to happen again (At least to yourself, if not to anyone else)
You've got to remember this is Europe, where they don't believe in punishing people. 9 years for murder is a harsh sentence in most European countries. And then they actually reduce a sentence because the guy is violent; shit, any logically thinking person would use this as a reason to increase it. I'd hate to think what their crime rates will look like 30 years from now.
Shouldn't someone with "aggression genes" get a longer sentence, to protect others from his aggressive behavior? Since when has "being an asshole" constituted extenuating circumstances? Oh, that's right -- if you are genetically an asshole, then that's ok! So, all I have to do is prove in court that my father and my grandfather where assholes too, and I can get away with murder? That shouldn't be too hard...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
No matter what science learns about our gene's roll in the choices we make I'm for banning this information from the court room.
I can see both sides of this to an extent. If someone has less control than it is less their fault, etc.. etc.. If someone has less control they are more of a danger to others, etc.. etc... I don't care. I think any information about ones genetic tendencies should be banned from the courtroom. People should be judged based on their own personal decisions, not their genetic makeup.
Any decisions made based on genes during this generation will effect the genes which get passed to future ones. Those genes must exist for a reason or they would have been selected out ages ago. I wonder how many in law enforcement or the military today have a genetic predisposition for violence? If one country completely eliminated said genes how much of a disadvantage would it be at if another invaded? On the other hand if everyone had them could we keep the peace at all? Nature will keep this in balance. We had better not try.
On a positive note, I suspect if society can reduce violence by other means then the benefit of having such genes around will drop. Natural selection should reduce them on it's own.
It seems to be working, Italy has an annual murder rate of 1.05 per 100,000 people. The US, with it's much longer sentences and the death penalty still used on occasion is up at 5.8 per 100,000. Correlation != causation, blah blah blah, but liberal western Europe has consistently low crime rates. Of course, if you look at the list, the real correlation behind crime is poverty. Western Europe, the various Oil rich nations and other countries with strong welfare system have lower crime. The countries where government support for the poor is slim to non-existent, or those where the government is essentially non-existent have high crime rates.
Nope. It is impossible, even at the most basic theoretical level, to predict everything. Basic physics theory shows that it is impossible to even just measure everything to an arbitrary degree of precision regardless of what instrumentation you may have. Go back and read your Heisenberg.
Actually, while complete measurement may be impossible, it does not mean that the actual underlying mechanics are not deterministic. In fact, superdeterminism is considered a viable explanation of Bell's inequality that avoids ruling out a completely deterministic universe by abandoning any notion of free will in performing an experiment.
You can read a longer explanation here.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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However:
1. Is the science mature enough? And more importantly,
2. If the science is correct - a reduced sentence is not the solution.
I mean - are there any murderers who don't have the aggression gene? Hell - let's test every murderer and if they have the aggression gene -reduce all of their sentences!
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Italy had 1.29 murders per 100,000 people in 2000. We had 4.28 per 100,000 people. (link)
I guess those harsh prison sentences are going wonders for stopping murder here. Gosh, you'd think that with only 9% of the world population and 22% of the world's prison population that American society would be safe, right?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You make some interesting points and I don't disagree with some of your conclusions, however it is important to keep in mind that "barbaric" is a pejorative referring to a lack of "civilized" influences. The very notion of civilization is that individuals must sacrifice certain behaviors in order to benefit from the synergies of group participation. People who cannot, for whatever reason, conform to a certain minimal extent must be ostracized, for the good of the group.
I don't necessarily disagree, but you might find it interesting to read about the Native American / First Nations systems of justice prior to European colonization. In particular, natives who committed "crimes" would be made to sit with victims in a tent with elders until the elders decided that there was appropriate empathy and repentance by the accused. In contrast, nowadays, the Elders often describe the youth who come out of modern prisons as "forever lost". While there have probably always been people who would be considered "forever lost" (i.e. those who cannot be redeemed), I think the prison system creates such people.
This is just food for thought - there are interesting alternate paradigms to the industrialized mandatory monastery.
"He needed killing your honor." - Felon
"Well, okay, we'll let this pass this time but don't go killin folks who don't need it. Case dismissed!" - Texas Judge
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
What utter bullshit. A moments Google search for total crimes per capita would have shown you that from worst to best, the rank is:
1 Dominica
2 New Zealand
3 Finland
4 Denmark
5 Chile
6 United Kingdom
7 Montserrat
8 United States
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
Furthermore, people don't steal because they are poor. They steal because they are sociopaths. Bernie Madoff was not short of cash for a box of donuts and a six-pack. He was not poor or downtrodden or starving.
There are plenty of poor people who never steal, and plenty of rich people that do.
Reproducing the numerical values in the table counts as "junk characters". A tech website that counts numbers as junk. Go figure.