The article “Criminal Minds” was very interesting, and honestly quite unsettling. The claims that he made about being able to predict ones criminality is a large claim. I do not know if I trust that it is the truth. Raine did bring up the fact that “the brain changes”. There are different things that happen in someone’s life, which can change their criminal destiny. This would skew the predictions and results of how likely someone is to become a criminal.
The question concerning whether or not I would want to know if I was going to be a criminal or not was difficult for me to settle on. Some side of me would want to know, but when thinking of the effects it could have on my life I decided against knowing. I think if I found out that I was going to be a criminal I would worry my whole life about it. I also would not like to know the fate of my children, or have them know. If they knew they were prone to psychopathy they could possibly start hanging out with different kids who are also prone.
It could be good for providing data of the percentages of these people, and how many of them actually act on it. It could be very good if it could protect the victims of the crimes people could commit. If there was a way to stop criminality in people, then I think this information would be extremely useful. This could prevent many friends and family from the heartbreak of losing someone that was a victim, or losing them to the prison system.
Julia,
ReplyDeleteI like the point that you raise on brain changes and how much we can really predict from a person. I think that it may be incredibly harmful to label people who may not even be at risk. I also agree that it would be great to boil this down to a hard truth so that we could potentially save lives. Sadly we are not there yet.