[whiddershins]

All humans are capable of horrific acts. It is a part of our humanity, we are apex predators who organize socially. The evolved algorithm in our brain that manages that dissonance is extremely complex and will necessarily fail at times.

We can't tolerate or condone antisocial behavior, but it is a mistake to feel safe in the thought "we" are better than "them."

We are they, they are we.

[rukuu_001]

> All humans are capable of horrific acts.

I think it's important to internalize this idea.

Whenever you hear of a violent and sickening act, ask yourself: under what circumstances would I do that?

Answering 'never' is a failure of imagination. Engaging honestly with this question is the path toward solving the problem of our capacity for harm.

[sathackr]

I wish there was a multi-upvote button.

This, so much this.

It's so easy to turn it into 'us' and 'them'

So many stereotypes, so much historical(and, of course, current) violence and bloodshed because someone convinces a population how 'they' are different than 'us', 'we' are better, therefore 'they' must surrender(and become like 'us') or 'we' will force 'them' to.

My favorite example? Extrajudicial killings of non-us citizens unilaterally declared to be terrorists. And since it's 'them', somehow it's moral. Terrorism is bad, but doesn't give us the right not to afford another human the protections of things we have declared to be owed to all men.

If 'We hold these truths to be self evident..." then why do we only apply them to US Citizens? (And then, take them away from some US Citizens, the ones that have been declared to be 'them' no longer 'us')

[justicezyx]

Hmm, I guess I am too much a CS people.

When I say "animal", I mean human as a kind of "animal". In terms of people killing people, that is a reflection of the "animal" side of human. Thus I use "animal".

If you think I mean they are "animal", and I am not "animal"; and I am better then them. Sorry, I do not possess that prejudice.

My question simply is: How we treat the "animal", which are people showing high-degree of animal instinct of a human, who killed other human?

That's not an implication that they should be treated as "animal".

[anexprogrammer]

Everyone has a breaking point. I repeat, everyone.

Most murders are unplanned and unrepeatable - the wife who snaps after years of neglect or emotional abuse. The husband who kills his 90 year old wife, of 70 years, in the old people's home. The argument between lifelong friends and an unlucky punch. (All cases I recall hearing in the news in the last few months).

Apart from anything else it's very unlikely they'll ever kill again. It's probable few, if any, of them expected to ever kill... Until they did.

They need rehabilitation, perhaps anger management or support, before they become unemployed, unemployable and institutionalised in a brutal prison system.

The pre-mediated murder or mass shooting are somewhat different as they required thought, perhaps much planning.

Of course they need imprisonment, but equally need rehabilitation, perhaps education, perhaps mental health issues, perhaps anger management.

The simple fact is prison, in and of itself, does not work. Other than as training at being a better criminal. In the US prison system I suspect it trains you to solve far more of your problems with violence - not fewer.

It might not be fashionable to suggest therapy, treatment, rehabilitation and education. It costs money after all. To not offer those, as a matter of course, is helping create lifelong criminals.

Of course there will be recidivism after rehabilitation. Mistakes too. How many people who leave prison now go on to commit more crimes? Most of them.

[zanny]

The original intent of incarceration was to remove those from society who we could not trust to peacefully participate in it.

That intent is naturally lost today - the mass incarceration of drug users being only a portion of a larger pie of injustice and horror committed on a daily basis in the US that includes other atrocities such as police brutality and civil asset forfeiture.

Obviously in cases where prisoners kill one another, in a sane world, the constable and other administration of the prison would be held accountable, as would any officers who betrayed their duty to let it happen. It is always someones fault you put individuals who we deemed untrustable in the presence of others to be placed in circumstances to harm others again.

Unsurprisingly, the reality is that locking people up is incredibly expensive. We spend more per prisoner than we do per dozen students in public schools each year. The practical costs of incarceration are huge, let alone the social and economic ones. It should be unsurprising the people are less receptive to tremendous taxes to pay for, by far, the highest incarceration rates in the world.

[im3w1l]

> The original intent of incarceration was to remove those from society who we could not trust to peacefully participate in it.

Do you have a source for that? The Code of Hammurabi seems to talk about imprisonment as the appropriate punishment for defaulting on your debt, and the ancient Greek seem to have used it for that reason as well.

[zanny]

Talking more about modern incarceration. Historically, banishment, exile, or execution were much simpler solutions to those who could not peacefully participate in society.

The intent of modern incarceration, at least in civilized nations, is the recognition (through study) that punishment is not rehabilitative or particularly beneficial for society as a whole. To use prison as a punishment can only act as a deterrent, not as a remedy.

[EliRivers]

Well if you see them as biological machines, the correct answer is "training". Currently, putting these biological machines into these prisons trains them to use violence as a problem-solving tool and trains them in the understanding that they will not be protected by the authorities and they must look after themselves (with their problem-solving tool; violence).

These prisons are a way of training people to be criminals.

[trhway]

i wonder why "animal" surfaced here at all. Animals kill for food or self-defense, it isn't a voluntary act, it is what they have to do. Killing for other reasons, voluntary killings, murders - it is all almost exclusively human trait. In particular, animals don't do murders, it is human invention.

[EliRivers]

Some animals kill far more than they need to for food. They kill one, and instead of eating it or leaving with it, kill many more and then just leave the fresh kills behind. That's not for food, and it's not for self-defence.

[trhway]

and just naming such an animal would advance this debate a great length ...

[EliRivers]

Foxes.

I think you could have looked that up yourself, but you're not here for answers. You've already made your mind up.

[nommm-nommm]

Cats kill for fun.

[trhway]

>Cats kill for fun.

urban legend (the same type of BS like cats decimating bird population in Golden Gate park when it is mostly people who gather the eggs, and sometimes rats who proliferate when cats population is actively controlled).

Instead of eating prey himself, a cat may bring prey back into the den/house for the rest of the pack/pride (which in case of a house cat may be the humans living with the cat instead of other cats like it would be in wild). Just observe a pack of feral or wild cats. Obviously such behavior has nothing to do with "fun". And the killings here about prey. There is nothing about killing other cats. Btw, know any animal who developed cannibalism?

That is one of the main problem with attempts to address violence in human society - the typical starting point is thinking about it as a lost control over "animalistic urges" and having such a 110% wrong starting point it just goes nowhere. Like in AAA, the very first step is to recognize the truth - the violence has been natural driver and result of the development of our brain (chimps for example also demonstrate some types of "human" violence) - and from here we could finally start to move onto the next steps.

[EliRivers]

Cats leave behind about half of what they kill. They don't eat it. It's not self-defence.

http://www.kittycams.uga.edu/research.html

[nommm-nommm]

>Btw, know any animal who developed cannibalism?

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/animal-cannibalism/

Do cats bring home prey as gifts? Yes. However, kitty cams have shown they also often kill and leave their prey.

[ams6110]

No, sorry. Some people kill or viciously assault other people, while most people don't. There's not a moral equivalence there.

That said, I do think that the conditions described in the article constitute cruel and unusual punishment, at least by today's standards. I'm not sure what the framers had in mind; I'm sure 18th century prisons were not rose gardens either.

[whiddershins]

I heartily recommend "Why We Snap"

http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Snap-Understanding-Circuit-eboo...

and although a boring read, "Sex and War"

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism-ebo...

for a different perspective on your statements. The violent impulse is probably available to all humans, and it is plausible to say that all humans under the right circumstances can manifest extreme violence.

So it becomes details. How are the various impulses moderated under various conditions. It is the precise opposite of black and white, in my opinion.

edit: I am not excusing violence or advocating we tolerate antisocial behavior. I am urging compassion and empathy for people whose brains have made one or more decisions devastatingly incorrectly as a result of what may be an extremely tiny variation in programming, or an edge case that caused their brains to make the wrong decision.

[ljf]

OK, but why does the US have more murders per capita thank most other countries? What could be done to stop those people becoming murders? Or what pathways send people towards a life in prison?