Murderer With "Aggression Genes" Gets Reduced Sentence 507
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.'"
Re:Backwards? (Score:3, Interesting)
To protect us from those persons who cannot recognize the validity of this statement: "No man has a right to harm another. And that is all the government should restrain him." The government's job is to restrain these persons in cages, to protect our inalienable rights.
Fat Gene? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Where's the... (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).
Re:Backwards? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where's the... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personal responsibility is a pure fiction in a deterministic universe. Everything that will ever happen was decided at the time of the Big Bang. We just don't have the instruments to predict everything yet.
There's no counter proof to this assertion. For a simple example, we can create a quantum system that can, when observed, collapse into one of two states. But we can't predict which of those two states that the system will collapse into. Even if a human were completely deterministic, all they have to do is use one of these systems to inject unpredictable randomness into their decision making.
In other words, you don't need to predict the behavior of a human being, you need to predict the behavior of this two state system. If you can't do that, then the assertion is fundamentally in error.
Re:Right... (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
Re:8 years? Hate to be ethnocentric but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Where's the... (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 [psychologytoday.com], as a result of their choice of head.
Alas, the barbaric industrial prison complex will continue. But make no mistake, it's barbaric.
Re:Where's the... (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't that make the punitive aspects of the prison system (which have not been demonstrated to serve any rehabilitative goal) unconscionable?
Well, he said "keep criminals safe from society". As part of that, keeping criminals safe from revenge should be included. The punitive aspects of prison discourage retribution, especially if the avenger would also be subject to the same punishments as the criminal. I would argue that this aspect is very successful even in relatively violent cultures like those in the US. The criminal "pays his dues" and hence, sates the victims' desire for vengeance.
Re:Where's the... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody controls their behavior any more than animals.
This is inconsistent with my experience of guilt (which, I would add, is very different from my experience of fear of retribution and punishment).
To anyone who might get angry at me for asserting this, ask whether your anger at me is consistent with your belief that I had no control over typing it.
Re:Overlooking the fact (Score:4, Interesting)
Superdeterminism (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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 [everything2.com].
Re:The Opposite of Barbarism (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Where's the... (Score:3, Interesting)
Given his gene pool he's likely to kill again.
More likely. People can change - or perhaps no change is necessary if it was a crime of passion or accident. I wonder if those crimes are more common with genes such as this?
I would've leaned towards more time. A former alcoholic has to watch his beer intake, and possibly stay away from it altogether. An aggressive person has to keep his anger in check. This reduced sentence seems backwards to me. What's next - reduced sentences for hit and run cases and manslaughters, if the drunk driver has a gene that helps him get addicted easily?
No, I don't think so. We all have our challenges that we have to overcome. Deal with yours and fit in with society as best you can.