Quote:
Originally Posted by honeychile
I agree - I'm just wondering aloud if:
a) Is there a genetic predisposition to violence of the worst sort and
b) How do we stop it? At what age should society give up on a violent child with the genetic predisposition towards it? |
Of course, I don't pretend to know the answers, and even if there is a predisposition, which I'm inclined to agree with, as Drolefille pointed out, there is often abuse in the environment, too.
Some people get a double dose of the factors that would make them violent in the ways we're talking about. They have whatever genetic contribution that might matter, and then they are often raised by violent and abusive people who hurt them and also model hurting people and criminal behavior as "normal" things.
I don't know at what point the irresistibly violent urge going to be permanently switched on, but I really think that it is in some cases. Without literally constant monitoring, some of them are going to act on it. And I think it's actually set in some cases at shockingly young ages.
I think we can try to find out what the traits are and how they show themselves and then for this very narrow sub-set of people,* we should just never let them out of jail, no matter how young they were when we figured it out.
*I don't even think that most violent criminals are like this. I think a higher number either can be rehabilitated or can be kept in jail past the age at which they are likely to be most violent. But I think Ted Bundy would have kept killing until he was dead, no matter how long he lived, and there's no point in pretending that people like him (or Dalmer, Gacey, the Green River Killer, or the BTK guy) can be fixed.
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