Slashdot Mirror
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.
Did anyone consider that the ugly may commit more crimes?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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
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.
No, it's because most of us wish we had teachers like that.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
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
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.
Really ? Because rational minded people tend to win debates when engaging emotionally minded people ? You're either
1)not a rationally minded debater but thinks you are
2)very good at debating
3)too inexperienced to have noticed that reason never win any debate.
(usually 1 and 2 go together)