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Time Dilation Drug Could Let Heinous Criminals Serve 1,000 Year Sentences

Posted by Unknown on from the miles-was-never-the-same dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Like something out of the movie Inception, Rhiannon Williams reports in the Telegraph that Dr. Rebecca Roache, in charge of a team of scholars focused upon the ways futuristic technologies might transform punishment, claims the prison sentences of serious criminals could be made worse by distorting prisoners' minds into thinking time was passing more slowly. 'There are a number of psychoactive drugs that distort people's sense of time, so you could imagine developing a pill or a liquid that made someone feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence,' says Roache. Roache says when she began researching this topic, she was thinking a lot about Daniel Pelka, a four-year-old boy who was starved and beaten to death by his mother and stepfather.

'I had wondered whether the best way to achieve justice in cases like that was to prolong death as long as possible. Some crimes are so bad they require a really long period of punishment, and a lot of people seem to get out of that punishment by dying. And so I thought, why not make prison sentences for particularly odious criminals worse by extending their lives?' Thirty years in prison is currently the most severe punishment available in the UK legal system. 'To me, these questions about technology are interesting because they force us to rethink the truisms we currently hold about punishment. When we ask ourselves whether it's inhumane to inflict a certain technology on someone, we have to make sure it's not just the unfamiliarity that spooks us,' says Roache. 'Is it really OK to lock someone up for the best part of the only life they will ever have, or might it be more humane to tinker with their brains and set them free? When we ask that question, the goal isn't simply to imagine a bunch of futuristic punishments — the goal is to look at today's punishments through the lens of the future.'"

24 of 914 comments (clear)

  1. Ridiculous. by Kojiro+Ganryu+Sasaki · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's ridiculous. If we wanted to cause as much damage to the criminals as possible, why not simply reinstate torture?

    That's basically what she seems to want.

    (no we shouldn't do that)

    1. Re:Ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This. ... "and a lot of people seem to get out of that punishment by dying"

      They didn't get out of anything, they're dead.

    2. Re: Ridiculous. by AvitarX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's what I was thinking. The whole summary made me sick. Justice isn't a code word for vengence.

      There's an argument to be made for execution, if someone is deemed beyond redemption, but to invent drugs to extend punishment is horrible. Unless the idea is someone can be released in a week, and become productive rather than a drain on society.

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    3. Re:Ridiculous. by hawkinspeter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Absolutely. If they are going to use drugs to exact harsher "punishment", then they might as well start looking for a drug that causes intense pain and suffering. While they're about it, why don't they semi-starve the prisoners and ensure that they can never get more than a few minutes sleep.

      This is the most objectionable story I've ever seen on Slashdot.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    4. Re:Ridiculous. by Like2Byte · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. This is simply inhumane. Regardless of the otrocities commited by the convicted, we cannot, as a society, debase ourselves by resorting to torture of the mind, body, or soul.

      The department of corrections is supposed to be "correcting" human behaviour, not damaging it. Too much of that happens in prisons as it is. Now this doctor wants to exacerbate that?

      Whatever organization that she received her doctorate from should revoke it immediately!

    5. Re:Ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      On other hand, this could actually be used positively. If someone is sentenced to thirty years, but they only had to spend 10 real years (but 30 with time dilation drug) - then they come out into a society that isn't all that changed, comparatively, and easier for them to readjust back into, having served their time.

      There's bad and good with every technological use.

    6. Re: Ridiculous. by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1000 years subject time, all spent strapped to a gurney and looking at the ceiling and you think they're going to come out of it as a productive member of society? Not to mention submitting someone to 1000 years of that torture in less time than it takes for a lawyer to file an appeal, that's just a great idea for justice. I sincerely hope the author of this piece was being satirical... the alternative is that she's a raging sociopath.

    7. Re:Ridiculous. by pjt33 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Her PhD is in philosophy. However, she is an associate editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics, so we should all still be pretty worried.

    8. Re: Ridiculous. by evendiagram · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Considering that time dilation punishment would be completely solitary, this may be the most cruel way to psychologically break a person. The author should be the first to volunteer for testing.

    9. Re:Ridiculous. by newcastlejon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      However, she is an associate editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics,

      But hopefully not for too much longer.

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    10. Re: Ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh come on, this article is from a UK newspaper and is about someone at Oxford pondering the UK system of punishment. How does America even tie in?

    11. Re: Ridiculous. by WilyCoder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're saying that because you believe the accuracy of convictions is 100%. That's laughable.

    12. Re: Ridiculous. by Sloppy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tests have already been done on countless millions of people. None of them complained about being dead, said they'd rather be doing something else, or petitioned to be made no-longer dead. Zero.

      Our common sense (and some very strong instincts) tell us it's an extremely bad thing, but thousands of years of observations suggest that once it happens, nobody really cares anymore.

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    13. Re: Ridiculous. by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Informative

      Many countries with what I could consider "pure" rehabilitation programs spend a fraction what the US does on incarceration and have lower recidivism rates. These systems are generally run on the basic philosophy that criminal behavior that can't be fixed is a mental illness and should be treated as such, often meaning they are in fact removed from society longer than they would have been if they had simply thrown in prison. Everyone else goes through counseling, education, etc during their prison sentence. And again, at a lower cost and lower recidivism rate than we see with our punishment centered systems.

    14. Re: Ridiculous. by stoploss · · Score: 5, Interesting

      the problem is the lethal injection. There are ways to kill someone without any pain (see assisted suicide), but the death penalty is executed with some very painful medicine. Why?

      I recently did the research about this very question. I won't provide the many links I found, because all were trivially available on google.

      1. An Oklahoma medical examiner came up with the three drug cocktail. He has no pharmacology background (btw, this is foreshadowing for what comes next).

      2. A multi-drug cocktail was chosen in order to avoid comparison with animal euthanasia.

      3. Ironically, the three drug cocktail would be considered unethical to use on animals. They use a reliable, long lasting barbiturate overdose (e.g. phenobarbital).

      4. When asked "why these three drugs?", the protocol inventor's response was "Why not?"

      5. "Why not"s include drug incompatibility that causes drugs to precipitate out of solution if saline flushes aren't used between drugs, the fact that some of these drugs ship in solid form and have to be turned into a solution by prison staff or a compounding pharmacy, and that the barbiturate used (pentothal) is extremely *short* acting.

      6. The current alternative protocol that uses midazolam is far superior. It's a surgical anesthetic that causes anterograde amnesia. The other drug is hydromorphone (aka. Dilaudid). If it gives you any sense of what that is, ERs constantly have drug seekers coming in and faking injuries or kidney stones to try to get hydromorphone. The gasping the one executed guy had was likely due to the fact that his brainstem was dying. Basically, this protocol is like a junkie OD with tranqs. The three drug cocktail doesn't have gasping because drug #2 is pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the lungs.

      7. No one will advocate improving the protocol because of the retarded politics that surround capital punishment. The anti death penalty camp will latch onto any suggestions of improvement as "proof" lethal injection is inhumane. The pro camp won't give them that opportunity, so we're stuck with a fucking achingly stupid drug cocktail invented by someone who was the equivalent of a stereotypical Slashdotter who suggests "improvements" for the Mars Rover. Why not just inject these prisoners with phenobarbital? Works great for animals. Peaceful death... but ZOMG! can't use the *animal* protocol on *humans*!

    15. Re: Ridiculous. by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 5, Informative

      Currently I'm traveling around SE Asia. Just about every country you go to has capital punishment for anyone trafficking in drugs. Yup, bring anything into singapore and they'll hang you by the neck until dead. Of course waiting would be cruel, they'll do it quite promptly the following friday.

      (Citation? Of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...)

      The funny thing is, even though you would think most people would want to avoid the long drop I am quite often asked if I want to buy drugs.

      This to me really shows that people just are not rational enough to avoid crime no matter how harsh the punishment we mete out. Because of this, really I think the best option is to focus in on rehabilitation, and in extreme cases locking people away to protect society, because the fact of the matter is that punishment as a deterrent does not work.

    16. Re: Ridiculous. by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Informative

      An ex-politician did the research for a BBC documentary - there is a simple, easy method of execution, used to humanely kill pigs in abattoirs, it's cheap, quick and requires no exotic chemicals. Asphyxia with nitrogen.

      He asked several people involved in administering the death penalty if they would consider it, and to a man, they all refused to condone the notion. Because the victim feels a few moments of euphoria before they go.

      They *want* the pain and suffering, despite the prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Constitution. The protocols are explicitly designed to be inhumane, and there is a tacit agreement amongst all those involved that they should stay that way.

  2. Thirty years in prison by Threni · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Thirty years in prison is currently the most severe punishment available in the UK legal system."

    No, it's not. People get 30-year minimum sentences, for instance, and there are a number of prisoners on whole-life sentences:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

  3. It will never fly in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This seems to be the very definition of "cruel and unusual".

  4. Re:More like the movie Demolition Man by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    desire to go to the toilet

    I wanted to, but I couldn't work out how to use the three seashells.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  5. We do this already by unixcorn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A convicted felon, even once they serve their sentence, is still a pariah in the US. Their record follows them so they can't get jobs, they are shunned by society and in some cases they are put on lists so neighbors can keep their kids away from them. I think we do a pretty good job of torturing criminals for their entire lives, while we wonder why the recidivism rate is so high. As a caveat, I have to say that our "correctional" institutions probably don't do much real correction so the guys on the lists probably need a watchful eye on them.

  6. Re:Prison is more than punishment by Ardyvee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think a 1000 years punishments would do much to... rehabilitate prisoners. If anything, it'll break them beyond breaking or turn them into madmen that will be your worst enemy on they get out.

    The idea of "punishment" for a crime makes little sense beyond a certain point. Sure, you want to punish behaviors as a way to reduce them (the same way we punish kids for behaving incorrectly) but there gets a point where going beyond in the scale of punishment is futile and even counter productive, specially because most of the time all you are doing is giving the satisfaction to the victims that somebody is still being punished (paying for what they did), instead of becoming a better person (which should be the aim of jail time but isn't).

    And, on topic: if living for 1000 years for a normal person would usually result in worse than bad results (loss of friends, lack of usual boundaries/inhibitions because you just need to wait), never mind them being locked up (imagine watching the same place and for years at a time, following the same routine over and over again, or in the case of the drug, watching a wall for the equivalent of months at a time)... It'd take a specially strong mind to withstand that and still be functional afterwards. And it's that kind of people that you don't want locked up ever (instead you want them following the law, or for the second option, dead). If you just lock them up, they are going to hate you afterwards for it, if they don't try to escape during sentence.

    --
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  7. Doing it wrong... by flogger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Use this pill on Friday night and make the weekend seem like it last for 5 years instead of 20 minutes.
    Maybe I could give it to my spouse before sex.

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    -- The Doctor, "Doctor
  8. Star Trek covered this by kairu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While reading this article, I find it hard to believe that "Roache says when she began researching this topic, she was thinking a lot about Daniel Pelka". Not to insult the inspiration, but it seems like a lot of other sci-fi related shows have already covered this. The one that is on the top of my mind is "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" ("Hard Time", Season 2, Episode 25) where Miles O'Brien's mind has been altered to create memories of being incarcerated for 20 years on an alien world on charges of espionage and sedition.

    Isn't this basically the same thing (except, you know, for actual criminals)?

    Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

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    -- kp