The future of brain understanding and its application to crime, what do you think?

Question

I've done alot of thinking about this subject. What are the cahnces we will know the general "normal" functioning of a brain at a given period of time. I say general period of time because certain things weren't considered crimes back in the day and therefore society accepted that to those things would be "normal" Who knows, cannibalism may be "normal" in the future due to extreme food shortage and will not be a crime, so therefore a Normal brain is an abstract concept rather than a concrete one, because the brain adapts to its enviroment, and society deems you normal when you act accordingly, so is it likely we will be able to acheive a basic underlying genetic blueprint of behavior and rational thought that is in tune with the function of society and an overall sense of security in this that doesn't permeate in the mind as excessive alarm. In the future can we mold people's genetic mental code to a current standard and keep it that way to alleviate crime? It seems possible to me.

Answer 1

Interesting premise, but there are a few things to consider
1. genetic code and brain structure coupled with expressed behaviour are not 100% related. Although studies show that monozygotic twins have a higher coincidence of psychopathy and other crime related disorders, the fact of the matter is that if you raise one child in a nurturing environment and another in a deprived environment - there will be fundamental differences in behaviour patterns. As such, maniuplating genetic blueprints for people will not result in 100% criminal behaviour...

2. brain structure does not neccessarily represent differences in "society." Yes, if you take someone from a pigmy (sp?) tribe, or someone who lives a fundamentally differnet life (i.e. comparing someone who works with their hands to someone who is an academic), there will be slight differences. However, evoltuionary changes in the brain are slow to take place - for instance, although the neocortex is a "recent" development, it is still thousands and thousands of years old. As such, if you took a farmer from 16th century England and compared them to a farmer in 20th century US, there will not be many differences even though the laws are different in both places (i.e. 16th century England still permitted slavery and adultery was a crime (I think)).

Consequently, although your premise is interesting, it does not really get at what the issue is. The issue actually is, do psychological concepts have any applications in law. One fascinating area of research involves witness accounts during trials - to what extend is that eye witness account a genuine reproduction of the actual events? does the age of the witness matter? how do the questions matter? what if the person has below average IQ?

Answer 2

I know what you're saying, but I think the general level of brain development that has now been reached in civilized societies is not an "abstract" thing and is, instead, a very physiological thing that has resulted from nurturing of each newest generation. I think it is a "genie-ouf-of-the-bottle" thing that - even in the face of starvation - would never include an "ok-ization" of cannibalism.

There could be a time when some people would be pushed to that, but I don't think "brains" will at any time in the future ever determine that to be normal and ok. It would theoretically be possible for such a thing to become so necessary to people who aren't willing to die instead that prosecuting may be "let go" under certain circumstances, and it could possibly - in the face of such awful circumstances - be viewed as necessary by some people; but I believe the degree of brain development already reached would never "convert" such an act to "normal".

The reason so many things that went on in the past (that are not considered wrong) went on was ignorance. Even today there's a lot of ignorance when it comes to what is ok to do.

A sense of morality and conscience are tied to brain connections made in a certain part of the brain. Failure to form those connections or damage to them are caused by what happens in a human's environment at the beginning of life. I don't know to what extent a well developed brain will result in a blueprint for future generations, but I know that crime occurs when there is either a poorly formed/damaged brain or else a person with a normal brain who has become emotionally damaged to the point of committing crime or at least to the point where he is unable to control the temptation to commit one.

A brain that has completely developed the way it is supposed to means a person will not be subject to the "whims" of social change or attitudes and will hold fast to what his brain knows is morally acceptable. It is when people have flaws in their development (even if that is only having had their "moral intelligence" or emotional security stunted by even slightly insufficient nurturing of it) that they are swayed by societal trends and/or accept morally unacceptable behavior.

If you think in terms of humanity throughout all of history, and you think of how REALLY recently (within that context) there was slavery in the United States, and some people thought that was acceptable; you can see how "enlightenment" for the world has taken an awfully, awfully, long time. There have always been people who had an extremely developed sense of morality, but they have not been in the majority. Regardless of what you believe about him, one historical figure who tried to make people realize that some behaviors were horrible was Jesus Christ. Regardless of what your belief about him is, historically he played an enormous role in pointing out what behavior was morally acceptable and that the barbaric behavior of his time was horrible.

I don't necessarily think it is necessary to figure out a "genetic mental code". I believe that every brand new human baby (in the absence of brain damage that occurred during the prenatal environment or birth) already has the potential of reaching a level of development that includes a well developed moral code. The trick is knowing how to make sure all the brain connections are made during the first few years of life (www.zerotothree.org).

The other trick is - once the brain connections have been made - is knowing how to teach children to use that well developed brain to reason out what is right and what is wrong.

The most difficult trick, however, could be in society's figuring out what to do about poverty and other problems that often turn a decent child/person into someone who is in such pain he/she loses the ability to resist the temptation of commiting crimes in order to alleviate that pain.

I have done a lot of thinking about this as well (although maybe not in terms of preventing crime in the future), and I am fairly certain that crime is (in the vast majority of cases) the result of what goes on one a person has been born rather than when their genetic make-up is being determined.

I believe it is theoretically possible to drastically reduce or nearly eliminate crime in the future, but with billions of people in the world and with so many cultures with so many different sets of beliefs with regard to what is ok and what isn't, how on Earth - at least right now - would it be possible to create the best nurturing conditions for every child in the world and make sure that no person ends up living in ignorance and poverty that breed crime?

The only thing I see as a possibility of making a huge difference is if "legitimate" and respected scientists can explain to the world the very real science of how to nurture optimum brain development in babies/toddlers, how to build emotional security and reasoning ability in children, and what to do to prevent damage to "souls" that occurs when people live in horrible poverty and ignorance.

The danger to civilized society is the chance that so many people who have already been damaged may result in yet more people's being damaged to the point where the gap between "the moral" and "the immoral" to the point where "the immoral" will rule society and make it more likely that even the children of the "moral" will become damaged and "join" the other side.

The challenge of finding a way to "pull" the damaged over to join the side of the "solid", so that the "solid people" will gain ground and credibility is that challenge that, if overcome, will be the answer to reducing/eliminating most crime.

and those are my thoughts on that......