[martinald]

But it is very well understood and accepted that teenage - especially male prefrontal cortexes don't fully develop until mid 20s.

I'm sure they knew it could have major consequences, but when your risk taking pedal (limbic system) pedal is pushed to the floor all the time and your risk avoidance brakes (prefrontal cortex) is not fully developed that all goes out of the window, not unlike being intoxicated.

For example, I shudder to think how aggressively I drove when I first got a car - and I was very sensible compared to many people I knew! I hadn't actually drove for a couple of decades since I was an adolescent until very recently and I had to rent a car for something, but it was absolutely startling to me my frame of mind vs the last time I drove. All I can remember back then that driving was extremely fun and the more windy the road the better, this time all I could see was loads of giant risks.

Now if you compare this to the whole population, if you have a segment of it that are much more risk seeking either through genetics or environmental reasons, you can see the problem.

You can see this in all kinds of statistics at a societal level - crime, accidents, addiction risk. It is all much higher in these age ranges (and especially skewed towards males).

I don't think we should just dismiss good science like this "because I knew better". It has always been a very grave societal issue that has tended to be ignored or downplayed.

Obviously this doesn't give people carte blanche to do what they want - I'm not saying that. But hopefully societal views will catch up a bit with society and we can actually do something about it.

[scott_w]

> Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences.

> But it is very well understood and accepted that teenage - especially male prefrontal cortexes don't fully develop until mid 20s.

Your statement here does not mean that the statement I quoted above is true. Just because biology predisposes one to doing stupid shit does not mean young people are incapable of understanding consequences and repercussions. The fact that most of us here never went out to cause millions of pounds of damage is testament to that.

[BoorishBears]

I don't understand why clarifying young folks are capable of understanding consequences and repercussions, but will underperform at doing so for a myriad of reasons, including real physical differences in brain structure, should be this contentious.

[scott_w]

Because we’re talking in the context of young people who executed a multi-stage criminal enterprise causing millions of pounds of damage, harming multiple companies and their customers, AND TRIED TO EXTORT THE CEO FOR PROFIT.

This is not “behavioural immaturity” associated with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex!

[martinald]

Actually, this is exactly what underdeveloped prefrontal cortex looks like at scale. You're describing sophisticated technical execution combined with catastrophically poor judgment.

They bragged about it to the BBC as well. This is not a clever strategy to not get caught. Neither is not immediately fleeing to another jurisdiction than the very one you committed the crimes in.

This is what happens when you have extremely smart kids with high risk-taking tolerance. If they weren't as intellectually gifted, they might be driving a souped up 15 year old Golf like a maniac round country roads - but because they have these technical capabilities, their poor judgment scales up to cause millions in damage instead of just getting themselves arrested with a few grams.

[scott_w]

That’s a massively reductionist view of this. Maybe prefrontal development played a role but so many things are part of this you can’t just say the two statements being put: one by OP and one by you.

“Teenagers don’t understand repercussions”

“Teenagers have underdeveloped prefrontal cortex”

These might have been FACTORS in this specific case but the former is not generally true. The latter is true but it’s not the full story. It cannot, on its own, explain why these kids committed a major criminal enterprise.

That is what I take issue with.

[michaelt]

There are some statements that, though reasonable in isolation, are almost always heard from people teeing up a really bad opinion.

For example, if someone says "I'm not racist, but" I'm already rolling my eyes before they've even said what they're about to say.

Similarly, when some people hear "prefrontal cortexes don't fully develop until" they start rolling their eyes pre-emptively at the infantilising, anti-personal-responsibility take that usually follows. Even if it didn't, in your case.

[scott_w]

My issue is that their statement about prefrontal cortex development is being used in the context of “young people don’t understand repercussions,” when the two things are not actually related. Not least because young people clearly CAN understand repercussions.