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Murderer With "Aggression Genes" Gets Reduced Sentence

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the blame-it-on-genetics dept.

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.'"

9 of 507 comments (clear)

  1. Where's the... by Malc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... personal responsibility? Controlling our behaviour is one of the things that differentiates us from animals.

    1. Re:Where's the... by CecilPL · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      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.

    2. Re:Where's the... by slim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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).

    3. Re:Where's the... by debrain · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
       

    4. Re:Where's the... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed. Anyone who mounts a "my genes made me do it" defence should realize that their genes are, for now, immutable and so they are effectively claiming that they cannot be successfully rehabilitated and must be monitored or otherwise controlled for the rest of their lives.

  2. Backwards? by Sefert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By that logic, isn't he more dangerous, and therefore should get a longer sentence? (Until a gene therapy solution comes out, anyway).

    1. Re:Backwards? by slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By that logic, isn't he more dangerous, and therefore should get a longer sentence?

      Only if the purpose of imprisonment is to keep dangerous people off the street.

      Finding a consensus on the purpose of imprisonment is pretty much impossible.

  3. Why can it only be one? by crmarvin42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  4. Re:I get your point by be951 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah I mean, really, don't we want to do the opposite? Logically, isn't someone with an "aggression gene" probably going to be more likely to be a repeat offender?