[seanmcdirmid]

Young people have a much higher chance of reforming if society puts some effort into it. Juveniles especially need to be put on the right track somehow. Ignoring the problem is definitely not the answer, but neither is focusing on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

[rayiner]

Citation needed on that first point. I think the evidence shows the opposite. People who start committing crime earlier are more likely to simply be bad people rather than people who happened to be in bad circumstances.

[seanmcdirmid]

Kids are incredibly malleable, although they are mostly a function of their environment. Childhood really the only time you have to form them. Teenager are just bigger kids.

But yes, young people are more likely to re-offend, especially if society has given up on them. Older people tend to get beaten down by lots of wisdom, either learnt the easy way or the hard way.

[rayiner]

> Kids are incredibly malleable, although they are mostly a function of their environment.

Incorrect as to the word “mostly.” See: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/from-freud-to-fluoxe... (“Roughly half or more of the variance in most personality traits is attributable to genetic factors”). And even though environmental factors play a large role, by the time you're confronted with an adolescent who has committed a serious crime, a lot of that has already been baked in through the pre-adolescent environment.

> Teenager are just bigger kids.

That’s completely contrary to science. Teenagers are teenagers. Their brains are distinct both from children and from adults. In fact, the reason violence peaks at around 18-19 is because the development of the emotional centers outruns the development of the prefrontal cortex that provides impulse control.

And of course in terms of physical strength and capacity to do violence, men reach a substantial fraction of their full adult strength by age 15.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> People who start committing crime earlier are more likely to simply be bad people rather than people who happened to be in bad circumstances.

This is an unreasonable claim without the evidence actually being provided. It reads more as the conclusion you expect to see when you pull up a given study. Especially "simply be bad people" is not a particularly scientific phrase, and is a particularly moralistic one.

[rayiner]

You've got it backward. The notion that criminals are simply ordinary people who find themselves in certain circumstances is the moralistic concept. It's something people want to be true, because it implies that we can reduce crime by fixing the circumstances that cause people to commit crime.

But science shows that criminals are literally wired differently. For example, the brains of youth homicide offenders are different than those of non-offenders. Computer models can actually predict future homicidal behavior from clinical data and brain scans: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-32782-5 ("Classification through machine learning models using these clinical and neural data predicted which formerly incarcerated youth committed a future homicide as adults with high accuracy.").

Similarly, we know traits such as ADHD are caused by brain chemistry rather than the environment. Compared to the general population, ADHD is over-represented in prison populations by a factor of 5 for youth and 10 for adults: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4301200/ ("Compared with published general population prevalence, there is a fivefold increase in prevalence of ADHD in youth prison populations (30.1%) and a 10-fold increase in adult prison populations (26.2%).").

Of course, none of that is to say we should do some pre-crime like process where we imprison people with ADHD who haven't done anything wrong. Instead, the point is that youth who commit serious crimes are disproportionately likely to be the ones who commit crimes due to factors intrinsic to the individual. That cuts against the popular notion that youth offenders are the ones who are more likely to be able to be "saved" through societal intervention. E.g., an adult drug dealer who shoots someone in an altercation over a drug deal may well be easier to rehabilitate than a teenager who shoots a classmate over social conflict.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> You've got it backward. The notion that criminals are simply ordinary people who find themselves in certain circumstances is the moralistic concept.

Two things can be true at once. My point was about the quote I pulled. Other perspectives on the topic are a separate matter.

> But science shows that criminals are literally wired differently. For example, the brains of youth homicide offenders are different than those of non-offenders.

Regardless, science doesn't show how these differences form; this phrasing smuggles a nature over nurture perspective as a fact: "more likely to simply be bad people rather than people who happened to be in bad circumstances" (as well as "science shows that criminals are literally wired differently" and "the point is that youth who commit serious crimes are disproportionately likely to be the ones who commit crimes due to factors intrinsic to the individual"). My point is that the statements I quoted are not strictly true, they are what the author expects to be true; I suppose there may be some reason other than morals for said expectation but, seeing as you didn't deny my framing, instead reversing it, I suspect it is accurate.

[TimorousBestie]

If you ignore the essentialist phrasing, he’s largely correct—there is a “snowball effect” where the first crime and its punishment cause further physical, mental, and social damage to the criminal that can then lead to subsequent crimes.

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=27... has some analysis of the phenomenon; The Shawshank Redemption is a popular fictional account of the same idea.

[TimorousBestie]

Your own link above collates some studies showing that certain kinds of therapy reduce recidivism.

[soulbadguy]

> focusing on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

punishment is a prerequisit to rehabilitation

[y0eswddl]

no, it's not. consequences are. and we don't need to hurt people to get accountability.

[bigbadfeline]

> and we don't need to hurt people to get accountability.

Then don't hurt people, and ask that from those who do... if you don't want somebody else to do it to them.