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.'"
Whoa (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I wouldn't have lost my job if I could have proven I have a laziness gene.
Re:Whoa (Score:5, Funny)
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I get your point (Score:3, Insightful)
However:
1. Is the science mature enough? And more importantly,
2. If the science is correct - a reduced sentence is not the solution.
I mean - are there any murderers who don't have the aggression gene? Hell - let's test every murderer and if they have the aggression gene -reduce all of their sentences!
Re:I get your point (Score:5, Insightful)
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When we start imprisoning people on the likelihood of their committing a crime, you may have a point. Right now, not so much.
Likelihood? He did it. Convicted. And he got a reduced sentence by saying the 21st century version of "the Devil made me do it"
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More than "the devil made me do it" we're facing a serious problem in the coming years:
1) The court recognized and given a written sentence that stated there are innate violence traits in some north africans.
2) Here in italy special laws are provided for the dog races known as "biters" (Bulldogs and the likes). Since the same can be now legally said for North Africans should we have special laws for them?
3) If a "biter" harms a person the law prescribes the dog to be retired. Instead this offender got a pen
Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
... personal responsibility? Controlling our behaviour is one of the things that differentiates us from animals.
Re:Where's the... (Score:4, Insightful)
Says who?
By the way, you may be surprised to learn that humans are animals. We're apes, more specifically.
Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Funny)
Says who?
By the way, you may be surprised to learn that humans are animals. We're apes, more specifically.
Get your logic away from me you damned dirty ape!
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Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personal responsibility is a pure fiction in a deterministic universe.
Except that quantum mechanics implies that we are not in a deterministic universe. Replay the same actions twice and you won't necessarily get the same outcome.
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A fair die has a 1/6 chance of producing each of its possible outcomes(a fair D6, that is). A loaded die might have a 100% chance of producing a 6 and no chance of any of the others. One of these is random, one is deterministic, neither is free.
Aside from the fact that it is intuitively powerful, it is actually pretty hard to figure out what it would mean for something to have "free will". Imagine a die that can "chose"
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If we're smart, we'll execute murderers not for punitive reasons, but simply as a solution to a problem.
If we're really super DUPER smart (per your argument) we'll execute murderers BEFORE they murder... you know, because we are smart.
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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
Re:Where's the... (Score:4, Informative)
Good thing we don't live in one, then.
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.
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].
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm certain the judge has the gene for rectal-cranial insertion. There is a simple test for that defect, of course. Just read what a person writes. Is soon becomes obvious whether he has his head up his ass or not. In itself, the rectal-cranial insertion isn't a real problem, unless the victim has an exceedingly large skull, or an especially small orifice. The real problem, of course, is the resulting oxygen deprivation to the brain.
Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 h
Re:Where's the... (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.
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And before someone else points it out, yes I meant "keeping society safe from criminals". First cup of coffee, yadda yadda.
Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
And before someone else points it out, yes I meant "keeping society safe from criminals". First cup of coffee, yadda yadda.
If this really is genetic, wouldn't that be an argument for the death penalty as a method of selecting against that gene? Seems to me that giving such a light sentence is counterproductive here, if in fact it is genetic.
Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't that make the punitive aspects of the prison system (which have not been demonstrated to serve any rehabilitative goal) unconscionable?
Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hold similar beliefs, and to me, the punitive aspects of prison should only be as required to a) be a deterrence, b) serve as a lesson (as in you have to feel punished so you understand what you did is bad) and c) symbolically represent atonement to society. the latter part is really necessary because then the criminal can feel they deserved their punishment and got better from it, but also have the society consider someone who has finished his sentence as a new person.
Unfortunately, too many people feel that legal punishment is a means to avenge the victim. This is cruel, wasteful and essentially inefficient. Demand punishments as light as possible to deter: this will empty prisons, be less costly, and make for a more balanced society.
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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.
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Conscious awareness of our own free will is something we each experience. It's fundamental, as basic to all our observations as it gets, and in fact more fundamental than the existence of an objective physical universe.
Every single experience you have ever had points to your existence as a consiousness. Only some of the experiences you have had point to an external common reality. Your emotions are experiences you have had, and point to you as the experiencer, but they don't prove ther
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.
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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
Re:Where's the... (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.
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This essentially reflects my belief. If a person has a genetic disposition to murder and acts on it, they shouldn't be "punished" for this, but may need to be isolated from society. Of course, if we can cure the physical ill (i.e. schizophrenia) then we should cure rather than isolate.
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).
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There's always quantum mechanics to throw a wrench in there.
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We can measure the speed or location of a murder but not both at the same time?
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You should read up on Kant's categorical imperative. I am an atheist and it is the closest thing to a written rationale for a universal morality that I can find. Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative [wikipedia.org]
The summary, from the wiki page:
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
-b
Re:Where's the... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is personal responsibility compatible with atheism?
Maybe not. That's not just an atheistic question though - it goes right to the basis of free will.
However, we can accept for the sake of argument that we're all just clockwork beings with no more control of our destiny than a computer program. My programming is telling me that if I am going to continue to achieve my primary objectives (shorthanded as "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"), then dangers to those primary objects (including violent criminals) must be neutralized. This guy's genes may be an excuse, and an explanation for his actions. However, that certainly doesn't make him any less dangerous.
The only way I'd want him to get less time on the basis of his "aggressive genes" is if he were to undergo a chemical or genetic treatment that reduces the effects of those genes.
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Rehabilitation - Attempting to train/teach the criminal the error in his thinking enabling him/her to avoid it in the future. Allowing him/her to return to be a productive member of society safely.
Deterrence - Sort of a preemptive rehabilitation, it is a punishment to deter criminals from doing it or from repeating it.
Separation - Often hard prison time is advocated over weekends or probation. Th
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Is personal responsibility compatible with religion? If everything is controlled by an omnipotent, omniscient Being, then where does personal responsibility come into play? Everything happens according to God's plan. How do we blame a person for following Someone else's plan?
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If we are nothing more than a chemical being, then where does personal responsibility come into play?
Free Will gene. Nestled between the Must Have Sex gene and the Must Listen to Wife gene. It's all there in the genome if you just take the time to look.
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I think personal responsibility is a crutch that people lean on instead of facing up to the fact that our problems and questions have difficult and complicated solutions. It's far easier to put responsibility on individuals than it is to admit that there may be genetic or social infrastructures issues that encourage criminality in some people and discourage it in others. If we can say the criminal is solely at fault for his actions, then we never acknowledge our own responsibility for the problems that the
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:Where's the... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody controls their behavior any more than animals. In order to fit in we have to behave as though we want to fit in, it's simple feedback.
In other words, in order fit in we control our behavior so that we fit in?
Backwards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Backwards? (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.
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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.
Re:Backwards? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing your own conviction, with a consensus.
Truly, there is no consensus, and there probably never will be.
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there's a good consensus, excluding idiots such as yourself
I never revealed my own opinion (and I'm not sure I really know it). I do know that if you got 100 people into a room, you couldn't get 80 of them to agree on the precise purpose of imprisonment.
Most people would agree it's some combination of rehabilitation, incapacitation/societal protection, deterrence/prevention, restoration, retribution, education and denunciation/condemnation - but you'd get raging arguments about the balance between them. Arguments, no doubt, in which someone would fall back on calli
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That statement is at best a vague intuition unless you can tell us all about what you mean by harm, what situations might change how that is to be understood, etc.
Law cannot be reduced to such sparse statements.
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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."
I'm not sure if that's what you've actually meant, but you basically just said, "everyone who's not a libertarian should be imprisoned".
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Finding a consensus on the purpose of imprisonment is pretty much impossible.
Which is, in my opinion, the problem. If prison is about punishment; fine, take away the cable TV, education, and job training. If prison is about rehabilitation; fine, then prison should be like a combination full time thearapy and education system (and incidently, the same kinds of facilities should be open to non-criminals). If prison is about keeping dangerous people off the streets; fine, then sentences should be based off of scientifically valid recidivism rates combined with the dangerousness of t
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If the purpose is to keep him off the street and the rest of us safe, he should get more time.
If the purpose is so he can learn he did wrong (penance), then he can't fix this, so he should be locked up permanently because he can't learn to control this. After all, it's not his fault.
Or if he can learn to control it, it's harder to control, so he should be in for more time since he'll have a harder time learning to be in control as much as a "normal" felon,
Look at that. it doesn't matter what the purpose
Re:Backwards? (Score:4, Insightful)
Finding a consensus on the purpose of imprisonment is pretty much impossible.
True. However, it would be extremely strange for a prison to release an inmate a year early because he is displaying unusually aggressive behaviour.
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No, it really isn't. In the US at least, the prison system is officially called the Department of Corrections (DoC), and prisons are also commonly referred to as correctional facilities.
Sure, and since we changed the War Department to the Department of Defense, we've only used our military in self-defense, right? Names are just names, and they don't necessarily reflect the true intentions of the times much less modern intentions years after a name essentially became a meaningless label for an institution that's grown beyond it.
Plus, "corrections" could easily refer to either rehabilitation or deterrence. Rehabilitation was a dominant theory in the 60's & 70's, but deterrence was the
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Depends on how you look at it.
If prison exists as a punishment, then he is less to blame for his actions, and therefore should have the shorter sentence.
If prison exists as an example to others, then this ruling doesn't even make any sense, as a person cannot change their gene structure.
If prison exists to keep the dangerous elements of society away from everyone else, then the whole idea of prison "terms" seems illogical to me. Everyone should go to prison until such time as they are evaluated to no longe
Why can it only be one? (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
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Why would you use him as an actor in an amateur remake of Saw?
Re:Backwards? (Score:4, Funny)
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Thats what i though when i saw this.
Prisons serve as place to corret behavior and redeem criminals where it makes no sense to keep someone ucorrectable longer.
But at same time they also serve as means of preventing further offenses and insulating society from criminals.
Basically, it makes more sense to jail person with innate violent tendencies for longer period, not shorter.
Even better, just make no difference at all and it will be fine.
Also, WTB, personal responsibility.
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That is what I thought.
Maybe, after he gets out of prison, he should be kept in some other institution? An institution designed, not to punish, but to keep dangerous people off the streets.
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Until a gene therapy solution comes out, anyway
There are other therapies, such as drugs or anger-management classes. You may be genetically predisposed to cancer, but rather than "genetic cancer therapy" you'll get radiation and chemo.
Backwards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems a little bit backwards there.
If I'm actually genetically predisposed to violence, keeping me in society might not be the best course of action.
Seems to me, those that are _not_ predisposed to violence have a better chance of rehabilitating than those that aren't. Shouldn't they need less time in the slammer to rehabilitate?
Predisposed to violence = more time in?
Not Predisposed = less time in?
Eschewing responsibility? (Score:2)
Honestly - do people refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, or lack of actions anymore?
The purpose of jail isn't really to punish anyone, but rather to keep them off the playground until they can "play nice". If law is going to say that genes controll the way we behave, then will Italian courts start locking people up for having certain genes because they will tend to be violent?
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Right... (Score:2)
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I can understand that it doesn't seem right to punish someone for things out of their control
I can't, because I can't understand the idea of "punishment" at all. I understand the idea of conditioning, and the notion that imposing a negative consequence on someone because they have violated some behavioural norm may in some cases reduce the rate of such violations.
But when people talk about "punishment" they seem to have something quite different in mind. In particular, people who talk about "punishment" o
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)
Not a good way to handle predisposition (Score:2)
When we have inherent individual faults of some kind, it would be better to have society expect us to strive to overcome them. A mens rea is a big part of crime, but the effects of this kind of biological difference threaten to make grey a matter that the law (and society) relies on being reasonably clear - whether people are to be judged responsible for their actions. If people are drugged through no fault of their own, are insane, or are in a situation where they have little other choice, we may be lenien
Fat Gene? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ah... do you smell that? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the smell of free will going out the window, courtesy of people thinking that gene==unable to overcome that impulse. And with free will out the window, there's no liability. And with no liability... well, the court system we have is completely unworkable.
I was wondering when that issue was going to crop up. Thankfully, Italy seems bound to test just how much of a disaster that road will be.
The only solution to this is to ignore genetic predisposition when judging a convicted criminal.
Or, to put it differently: we have no choice but to believe in free will. Our society depends on it.
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Beyond that, it isn't even the "only solution". Just as, today, our justice system is extremely interested in parsing out "intent"(premeditated vs. non-premeditated, accidental vs. negligent vs. willfully negligent, etc.) you could easily enough imagine a system based instead on parsing out behavioral disposition. We already take some classes of mitigating factors and aggravating factors into
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No, you misunderstood. The problem isn't liberal depravity. The problem is that this approach removes intent, and replaces it with "genes did it". Yes, it's an exaggeration, and even the Italian judge didn't go all the way on this.
Here's the problem with this approach: it is possible to tie a genetic predisposition to pretty much anything these days. And from what I know about the cognitive sciences area, more and more genes are found to influence more and more behaviors. The end game here is that pretty mu
Implications for gay marriage? (Score:2)
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Practical Usage (Score:2, Insightful)
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Oh, I see. (Score:2)
Junk science! The judge should have read this 1st (Score:2)
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/04/love-of-shopping-is.html [boingboing.net]
And I agree with a previous comment that he should have gotten an INCREASED sentence, since clearly we can't allow someone who has no control over themselves loose in public.
Huh... (Score:2)
Makes sense, sort of (Score:2)
I'm ok with this ... (Score:2)
I'm ok with this, so long as the genes are removed from the pool.
How about, "You have bad genes and we're so empathetic that we're lowering your punishment. And because we don't want anyone else to suffer like you do, we're preventing you from procreating."
I think I could get behind that.
Behavior is often linked to biology (Score:2)
As often as we try to "cut the heads off of people" by separating the mind/brain from the rest of the body, we really can't. They are inseparable. We have an abundance of evidence that shows, for example, that homosexuality is not the "choice" that many assert it is and occurs among animals other than humans as well. Some people are quite naturally more aggressive than others and that, in fact, it can be modified through various chemical means.
It would be much more convenient if we could simple blame peo
imagine sentence for leaving light on overnight (Score:2)
Not Fair (Score:4, Informative)
More Time, Not Less (Score:2)
OK, let's say that this is true and it isn't this guy's fault that he's more likely to hurt/kill people (note: pure bunk).
So that means that he is more dangerous than the average felon, because he can control himself less.
Does that mean he should be put away for more time to protect society from his increased danger?
"Agression Genes": Because more dangerous genes means you need to be able to get to commit crimes you can't stop yourself from doing sooner!
Vi! (Score:2)
So remember emacs users, it's really not your fault!
Ducks...
Not surprising... (Score:3, Insightful)
Society has been on a tear lately always looking to avoid personal responsibility and blame someone (or in this case, something else). For example,
--Kids aren't hyperactive or have too much energy. They have ADD and require Ritalin.
--Why isn't my kid cut out to do Algebra in 2nd grade? It's not that he/she might have a disposition for the arts, but that I need to blame the school and the teachers.
--"The Man" is holding me down. I find it odd that at my Fortune 500 company the "White male" is not the majority of VPs.
--I'm not fat, it's just that I have a genetic disposition to eat tons of crappy food and avoid exercise. My genes make me buy ice cream and not even take a 10minute walk around the neighborhood every day.
--I can't get a date b/c I have a genetic disposition to be single, and not because I want to date Hawaiian Tropic models and I look like Bill Gates and dress like a slob.
Damnit people, take a bit of responsibility, there's millions of cases out there of people finding their niche and succeeding or overcoming their obstacles to obtain greatness. I don't recall all the immigrants that came through Ellis Island in the early 1900s saying, "I can't be anything" and blamed everyone else.
There used to be an expression, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." I think to many people this now has become, "When the going gets tough, blame someone else."
But... (Score:4, Insightful)
...don't we need to keep him locked up *longer*, since he's more likely to do it again?
Following that line of reasoning... (Score:4, Insightful)
The alcholic who was drunk driving and killed someone should get a reduced sentence?
Wrong way? (Score:2)
An appeal court judge in Trieste, Italy, cut Bayout's sentence by a year after finding out he has gene variants linked to aggression.'"
So the fact it has been proven he has gene expressions linked to aggression, shouldn't that mean his sentence should be RAISED?
This is a man who proved to others his genes make him dangerous to everyone around him.
That is exactly what prisons are for. To keep such animals away from human beings.
Does this mean if he runs at someone, and gets shot for doing so, it is not murd
That's backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
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Eh, it's Europe, they tend to give light sentences over there.
Re:Overlooking the fact (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong on the statistics, wrong on the facts (Score:3, Informative)
What utter bullshit. A moments Google search for total crimes per capita would have shown you that from worst to best, the rank is:
1 Dominica
2 New Zealand
3 Finland
4 Denmark
5 Chile
6 United Kingdom
7 Montserrat
8 United States
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita [nationmaster.com]
Furthermore, people don't steal because they are poor. They steal because they are sociopaths. Bernie Madoff was not short of cash for a box of donuts and a six-pack. He was not poor or downtrodden or starvin
Re: (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: (Score:3, Informative)
Italy had 1.29 murders per 100,000 people in 2000. We had 4.28 per 100,000 people. (link [nationmaster.com])
I guess those harsh prison sentences are going wonders for stopping murder here. Gosh, you'd think that with only 9% of the world population and 22% of the world's prison population that American society would be safe, right?