An alternative to deal with the worst crimes?

I would like to request others comment on something I have been thinking about. First, some background. We all hear about terrible crimes some people commit. How to deal with them? In the U.S some states, notably Texas and Florida (there are others, but they seem most zealous) have a death penalty. Most of the time they lock you up for the rest of your life. Well, more or less. And while no one argues that some people do vile and disgusting things, the question is, how to most effectively, and this is important, FAIRLY deal with them? We know through the various "Innocence Projects" taken up in some states, this started in Illinois, some people are just wrongly convicted. Crappy lawyers, it does all seem to boil down to money... For the record, I am against the death penalty because its not up to me to play God. And yet society must protect itself. Whats the best way?

For those of you saying it's "cheaper" to execute someone then keep them alive in prison for decades, thats not actually true. Appeals, at least in those parts of the country that do abide by the rules of due process, can drag on for over a decade and cost millions. Far more then just locking them up. But even if it was, "cheaper $" I wouldn't care. That's not my point. My interest is two fold. First, protection of the populace is paramount. But after the fact, how do you best "deal" with it?

Today, our current ability to "reform" people, particularly when dealing with true biological sociopathy, not just "dumb ass behavior" is very limited. We have enough trouble with just dumb ass behavior, but that I don't worry (OK, as much) about. In fact no current method I have ever heard of can get someone to " want to play nice", not so easy if if their not just nice to begin with. But a SciFi program syndicated in the 1990's had an episode that dealt with just this issue and a way to "re-organize or re-program" ones brain after the commission of a crime. Or perhaps before (very scary...) The series was "Babylon Five" (some cool space ships, and also an interesting premise, why I watched) This episode dealt with what they called "The death of personality" In effect they (TPTB sans galactic?) would "remove" that part of (or was it all of?) your "identity", what we call ego, sense of self and replace it with a non-violent persona. How they dealt with the nuances of all you "knew" and how your genetics vr's experience affected you, they didn't explain. (I would have been worried if they could). Truth is, true post-birth reorganization of human nature at the neuro-biological level may one day be possible. On it's face, the prospect scars the hell out of me. Who would have the right to use such technology, and would it help or hurt us? I will tell you this. If history teaches us anything we know, when we can do a thing we do.

So that being a "given", should society consider such "re-formatting" as one of a few choices? The other? And if THIS was available, I would offer them. Those other two being execution or life in prison, and you never get out. Ever. But the choice would be up to the criminal. But make no mistake at the end of the day, we have to deal with this. Thoughts anyone?

forgive me if I have jumped the gun, but, instead of locking people up like animals you want to reprogram their minds? just shoot me =)

in other words, the death penalty seams like a better option.

ed: if you don't get why I feel this way you should probably research MK ultra.

Such major formatting of a human being should only undertaken once we actually fully understand the complexities of the human brain.

To make many of these people non-violent, you'd have to redo them down to the primitive brain and cut off subconscious associations and ingrained reflexes.

It seems to me that the amount of neural rewiring this would take could seriously damage a person's brain.

I don't agree with the death penalty either, and I agree with what you say but I don't think its currently possible in our tech and understanding of the brain to perform this.

the main problem being lets say a killer goes to jail and they try to reprogram them, and it doesn't work but he says "I'm cured!"...

Then goes out and kills again.

I really think people should be locked up for life with appeal at the moment then if we can prove that reprogramming works go with that method.

Originally posted by AnIntellectualRedneck
Such major formatting of a human being should only undertaken once we actually fully understand the complexities of the human brain.

To make many of these people non-violent, you'd have to redo them down to the primitive brain and cut off subconscious associations and ingrained reflexes.

It seems to me that the amount of neural rewiring this would take could seriously damage a person's brain.

As for fully understanding the complexities of the human brain, if I may assume, (!?!) that means a perfect (give or take) linear understanding of human thought, and tying that in a cause and effect manner. Today at least, I don't think we can do this. Perhaps thats a good thing. Put it this way (and I almost got in to a fist fight with one of my engineer friends on this subject) The human brain was not designed by engineers. Thank God. Being biological, it takes advantage of the innate need in biology to manipulate information, and do so with almost no loss of energy. In digital informatics, you loose a piece of the signal you can loose the whole god damn message. Yet in bio-informatics if even a tiny fragment of the signal survives, you can reconstruct its "meaning" A bit like a hologram, as one part is nothing and yet everything hence any "point" with in that 3D matrix can represent the whole. Though perhaps at a lower level of resolution, a little less sharp? More on this later.

Look at where we are today, for example in psychobiology. We really have no idea "how" most psychotropic medications work. Oh sure in some cases we see some cause and effect, for example in SSRI antidepressants, we see a raise in blood and cerebral seratonin levels. But why does that make some people feel "better"? Perhaps because high seratonin levels are also associated with post satiation events, after we eat, or after sex. Take the drug Lithium used for bi-polar illness. This drug was discovered by the Romans when after drinking from certain mineral springs, some people "felt better, got normal, calmed downed" whatever. Today Lithium is one of the most widely prescribed psychotropic drugs, and of all of them unlike the SSRI, we have NO IDEA why it works at all, it just does. And being it's toxic to the body only in high doses, it works, it's cheap, and has helped to ease the suffering of many people, I say great! Now, it is in my nature to ask why something does what it does. I agree that any attempt to impose some kind of technological "quickie" to a serious problem like this, given our current primitive abilities, (ever hear of MK-ULTRA?) you are likely to end up with a lot of burned out minds, tortured bodies, and broken spirits.

As for redacting that part of the brain you call "primitive", it's there for a good reason. Hey, all that we are even that we don't understand is part of what it is to be human. For me, that's the part of my brain that gets me out of bed in the morning. Nature works well. Who am I to argue? But we do indeed have to deal with those among us I call "problem children" So... Everything that happens in biology is because information organizes itself to optimize it's position at homeostasis plus .01 It seeks "no advantage", per say and given no challenge, won't change. It seems biology seeks an advantage only if forced to. And every day, it's forced to. So oven time it becomes more aware and more robust. So, perhaps, one approach would be to create a mechanism to supper-impose certain conditions on those individuals who are are a threat. They would adapt to it and it could be "steered" in a way so that at the very least whatever their response, they would do no damage.

Since I can't design a "pill", etc that will redirected someone when they are hell bent on being a prick, perhaps I don't need to. I know nature is the master in self organizing systems, wastes nothing. It may be to our advantage to further study the pattern of not just how but why information is transferred between one and many biological systems. Perhaps it will help us design better mechanisms and protocols in the future. I will leave you with this thought. Ever been in a large (or small) sport's stadium when the crowd did "The Wave"? One person started it, and even if the "wave" petered out in the end, if only one person saw it at the end, the message was delivered, in it's entirety, the signal strength meant nothing. Thats why biologists and "engineers" can almost come to blows.

Thanks for your thoughts, more soon.

You will have to reprogram the victims,
how are they going to deal knowing
the person is out.
I feel that would be unfair in the terms of justice.

I speak from experience 6 relatives dead...
www.northplattebulletin.com...
This is hard to deal with but in
No Way did reprogramming him
make me feel better.
And I will not be reprogrammed for his crimes.

Originally posted by Gmoneycricket
You will have to reprogram the victims,
how are they going to deal knowing
the person is out.
I feel that would be unfair in the terms of justice.

I speak from experience 6 relatives dead...
www.northplattebulletin.com...
This is hard to deal with but in
No Way did reprogramming him
make me feel better.
And I will not be reprogrammed for his crimes.

First, please except my condolences. For me, it's much more easy (more or less) to deal with an attack on me. But to have someone you love be a victim, thats a god damn nightmare. You never stop thinking could I have done something to prevent it? As for what to do after the fact? Obviously, you can't change the past, but each of us can help to create the future. I would never ask you to be "reprogramed" for the crimes of another. I think the key would be to reorganize behavior in such a way so that there would be no way to recognize the acts of a person in their past, and that you would actually run into them. I would relocate them to a place far from their victims. Never the less, a lot of how we identify each of us as an individual we do so much less on general appearance, then it is on subtle mannerisms.

But at the end of the day all the manipulation of genetics, and biology is as you a second person in all this, is never going to be much more then a cheap magic trick. And if you know the victim, it's a very cruel trick, and nothing more. It will never be good enough. But I worry very much about creating the so called "perfect citizen" from whole cloth. We have no idea why certain behavior explodes in some cases. We do know that it is dangerous and futile to try to control by manipulation what we do not understand. Best we can do? Try to prevent a second train wreck. I can't prevent these kinds of nightmares before the fact. I'm not that enlightened But I would look as to what do after the fact, if possible. Take Care.