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Justice Not As Blind As Previously Thought
NotSoHeavyD3 writes "I doubt this is much of a surprise but apparently Cornell University did a study that seems to show you're more likely to get convicted if you're ugly. From the article: 'According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison.'"
Those will take a real toll on your looks. They also have a nasty tendency to turn people into thieves, prostitutes, and murderers. Also, being white trash will tend to age you about ten years, and it usually also comes with at least two or three DUI-on-an-ATV/public-intoxication/starting-a-fight-down-at-the-bar arrests.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Maybe they should have thought about that BEFORE being ugly...
Did anyone consider that the ugly may commit more crimes?
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who are in jail and are wondering why their prison term was longer than the average.
So is this the reason why we see so many female teachers going off so lightly when they have sex with student boys in comparison to their male colleagues ?
The statues of justice are always blindfolded, not blind...
On the plus side, we could spend some time discussing phrenological theories of the "physiognomy of the criminal type" which are always amusing.
:-|
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Any time a study comes out, twelvity million Slashdotters start chanting "Correlation!=Causation". None actually read the article. In fact, most have their rant typed out long before the story hits slashdot, and simply cut and paste into the comment box.
So, in the interest of keeping up this fine tradition, I offer the following:
1) Ugly people are more likely to actually commit the crime. Makes sense. Pretty people are less likely to need to do a crime as they are more likely to get good employement.
2) Committing a crime MAKES you ugly. Far fetched? Maybe. But I am sure those stupid researchers who only get by on grant money never thought of such a thing.
Clearly, I a faceless Slashdotter am more capable of analyzing the situation without actually reading the article, or giving it more than 20 seconds of thought.
Can the rest of my Slashdot bretheren help support my contentions?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Any movie or TeeVee show has shown this for years... there is a caveat, however...They can be good-looking and convicted if theyhave menacing music to accompany them...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Next they'll be saying that poor people and minorities end up in jail more often.
And a lot of the times people are going BACK to jail, and it's probably hard to stay good-looking long in jail.
(Although eye of the beholder etc.)
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
If this is true, how'd Micheal Jackson keep getting off?!
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So what did you expect? Everyone likes attractive people and who said justice is 100% objective?
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
It's that jealous police officers like to arrest attractive innocent people.
From an Ev Psych perspective, ugliness is a possible marker of some kind of degeneracy, and our negative reactions to the ugly are likely a gene-regulatory mechanism (conformity's hand - that thing in side of us that makes us think "FREAK" when we see people who can't walk correctly, who are missing limbs or deformed, etc - the whole attraction of "freak shows" in circuses was to engage this, although in modern times we aim for a more compassionate society and try not to engage or mention this anymore).
Judges, police, the boss considering promoting someone, they're all human, and unless they use some objective metrics as their primary means for choice, attractiveness will accidentally factor in.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Are ugly people more prone to criminal behavior? If so, it would be rational for, when the evidence isn't as heavily weighted in the direction of innocence, for a juror to infer a greater probability of wrongdoing, quite apart from considerations of fairness.
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Ugly people don't get raped as much in prison. So really, those 22 extra months are just to balance things out.
Isn't it just as likely that "ugly people" are more likely to have self esteem issues, which would lead to a higher proclivity towards committing crimes (thus more convictions) and the odds of those crimes being more heinous (leading to longer sentences)?
There were 22 comments.
The judge would simply look at the defendant and rule, "Of course he is guilty of raping her. I mean, just look at him."
...unless they controlled for likelihood of actual guilt (I don't know how) and severity of crimes brought to trial, all this tells is that justice may not be blind OR ugly people may be pre-disposed to criminal behavior and to commit more serious crimes.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Everybody knows that stupid people with poor impulse control also tend to be ugly ;-) Come one, have you ever seen an attractive perp on Cops?
This fits in with my 'I'm too pretty to go to prison!' plea.
It's talking about DEFENDANTS -- as in people already arrested and charged.
If police, prosecutors, judges, and juries were doing their jobs even close to right, and ugly people were just more likely to commit crimes, the arrest rate would be higher, but the conviction rate would not be significantly different from that of any other group.
Do I need to fill this in?
--- What?
The study was done with students at Cornell, who were asked to give their verdict after reading the closing arguments from the trial. The pictures of ugly and non-ugly people were inserted into these case studies, so that the same facts were presented as though they were about two different people.
The students read the closing arguments.
They were shown a picture of the "defendant."
They did not spend days or weeks in a courtroom. Listening to testimony. Viewing exhibits. Making their decision. They did not spend days or weeks observing the defendant - perhaps hearing him testify in his own defense.
Not everyone photographs well. "Ugly" is subjective. Body language matters. Speech matters.
The student may half the age of the average juror. With all that implies in experience and perspective. Does "ugly" have the same meaning to a combat vet as it does to an eighteen year old kid?
A woman at a grocery store near here was in charge of counting money from the tills and putting it in the safe. Over the course of a year she managed to steal over $100,000 in cash by doctoring the electronic sales records. The managers noticed, but she was too hot, so they routinely fired+blackballed the ugliest cashiers for stealing. Well, she finally got caught. The judge gave her a stern warning, no jail time, no probation. And she didn't have to pay back, she got to keep the $100,000. Judge even called her a wonderful person, said she has no chance of reoffending, and has a bright future as a university student and it would be wrong of him to get in the way of her! Left implied is that she gives good head, I guess.
I wish I was hot enough to steal 100 Gs and get to KEEP IT ALL with no other punishment.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Just glance at the wrong woman at the wrong time.
Having a facial scar does mean they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, beyond that you don't know crap.
Deleted
If we just posted an article on world hunger and/or world peace on slashdot, the problems would have been solved already 5 or so years ago. I trust everybody here with my life because I know everybody here reads the articles for me.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
I would like to see a graph with ugly vs money on it... I bet you could be hella fugly with a stack of cash and beat the hell out of the sentences of the broke beautys.
Ugly is as Ugly does.
The study let the fake jury read the case history and listen to taped closing arguments. However in a real trial, the lawyers are up in front and interacting. I wonder how much the lawyers physical attractiveness works into the equation. After all the defendant just sits at the table (unless he/whe takes the stand).
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Sometimes justice really is blind.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Did they start the study of a "Hot or Not" prisoner website?
Like the say in the auto sales game... "Theres an ass for every seat"
I think that applies here too. Some people are turned on by strangely shaped faces, legs, asses... midgets (where are my old videos?) ....
This is way too subjective to be taken seriously...
I read this /. post shortly after reading a story on CNN.com about young children and race. http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/index.html?hpt=C2
Is it any surprise that white children pick the darker skinned and declare them to be "ugly"? And in light of earlier comments in this thread: correlation or causation?
Ahm,
I dont know much about this study. But I know one thing for sure: I do not want to win the beauty contest in prison.
The problem is not that ugly people get more convictions, but rather that people who break the law are more likely to not care about their personal appearance.
Maybe you are just 22 percent more likely to be criminal if you are ugly?
maybe more ugly people commit more crimes.
It would be much more interesting to see how biased judges are. That study could be done by taking 100+ misdemeanor prosecutions at the local courthouse, and ranking the "ugliness" of the defendants with a sample of the public. Correlate that to the actual convictions and acquittals, and you can find out how fair your local judge is...
From Darth Vader to Gargamel we are taught that criminals are ugly.
From Steve McQueen and Charlie's Angels to Brad Pitt and Jessica Alba we're taught that the "good guys" are attractive.
Actually it goes much farther back than that. How about Hercules versus Medusa? Or Ulysses vs. The Cyclops?
This news is so old it was first written on cave walls.
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For example, any signs of remorse in the courtroom, performance on the stand, etc might be much more significant to the overall judgement process.
Typically, the defendant wouldn't take the stand at her own trial. Most attorneys really don't want their defendant cross-examined!
At any rate, the real problem with the study is that it complete ignores how juries reach a verdict. It's not as though a the Judge gives the instructions, the jury votes, and the majority rules. The jury has to deliberate and collectively reach a verdict (or not, if they are unable to reach consensus).
As the fine article pointed out, some jurors made decisions rationally vs. emotionally. During deliberations, the rationally-motivated people tend to concentrate on the facts, which tends to keep the "he jus look guilty!" crowd in check.
I'd say that the study assumes that the emotional thinkers have way more sway than the court system gives them.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
To be fair, prison is probably harder on good-looking folks what with all the unwanted attention... so it's probably for the best to get them through the system faster.
There's pictures spread all over the web of a guy who I believe had conviction(s?) for sexual assault. If you know the photos I'm talking about, they don't look like a real person. He appears to be very, very short, with an oversized head, crooked teeth and a completely bashed-in-looking face. Doesn't actually look real.
Google Image Search brian peppers to find this guy.
Maybe because people are cruel to ugly people so they lash back at society more often. People choose to surround themselves with good looking people, so ugly people miss out on opportunities, friendships, jobs, advancement, and other facets of social life. Not feeling good about life makes them not want to smile, which just makes them uglier.
When was the last time to saw an ugly CEO, politician, salesperson, or "employee of the month"? Ugly people could be famous musicians, but that was before MTV. And without success people sometimes resort to crime.
So there is probably a greater proportion of guilty ugly people, but the innocent ugly definitely have a tougher battle than the good looking ones. The charming crooks tend to evade suspicion from the beginning, so more "ugly" suspects will get picked up off the street, possibly just because the forensic artist lacks talent and all his sketches look ugly. Crime victims tend to describe their assailants as "ugly", because, let's face it, even good-looking people look ugly when they're trying to strangle you.
Groklaw has just turned seven, and SCO vs. IBM/Novell/Red Hat etc. cases are still going with nary a piece of evidence in sight.
Are people criminals because they are ugly, or are they ugly because they are criminals? Did being ugly cause them disadvantages, which drove them to a life of crime to help overcome, or did a lifestyle of crime make them ugly?
I'm going to guess mostly that people who have bad judgment often: a) look weird due to their lack of judgment, and b) do stupid, criminal things because of their lack of judgment.
This would explain Courtney Love's problems.
You know, Hitler really was an ugly motherfucker. He was just charismatic. So, I guess ugly, charismatic people commit more crimes. After all, my anecdote must be adequate evidence, yes?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
This is not a new phenomenon.
Duh. Plaintiffs should have the right NOT to face their accusers too. They should be allowed to watch the court room from a CCTV in the building if that will help their case. Or perhaps the court could be arranged so the jury cannot see the plaintiff, but everyone else can.
I'd never need this, but I'm pretty.
"But he has such an honest face"
"Do you think he could be a successful crook if he didn't have an honest face?"
Convictions versus acquittal is clear enough on the one hand, but who established the ugly versus beautiful scale. What if Cornell types just are attracted to real losers in the opinion of others?
...if he ever gets brought before courts in the US...
"I was so ugly as a kid my mother used to feed me with a slingshot!" "My psychiatrist told me I was crazy. I said Doc, I want a second opinion. He said all right, you're ugly too." "I was so ugly my father carried around the picture of the kid that came with the wallet."
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
Do you know about the case of Amanda Knox, convicted for murdering her female roommate (for refusing a sex orgy). It made it into the newspapers all around the world, because she's educated, into arts, was said to look as fair as an angel and was completely calm and self confident throughout her trial. Evidence seemed to point to her and her friend, she wound herself up in contradictions and implausibilities but nonetheless, there was severe doubt, as to whether someone that innocent and beautifully looking would really commit such atrocities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Meredith_Kercher
http://clintvanzandt.newsvine.com/_news/2008/12/04/2178143-amanda-knox-cold-blooded-killer-or-angel-faced-victim?commentId=11018815
They're just talking about 'looks'
No sig today...
Sounds like a real Catch 22
I remember hearing someplace about a study done on the NHL that showed statistically if you wore a black or dark colored hockey jersey you were statistically more likely to get penalized by the referees, while if you wore a white or light colored hockey jersey you would be less penalized.
Of course this could have more to do that all teams have two jersey's, a light and dark, one for home games, and one for away games, and that could be the determinate factor. In either case at least statistically there seemed a bias one way or another.