Is It Wrong to Punish Prisoners?
Adrian Raine
Richard Perry University Professor of Criminology & Psychiatry
Isn’t it wrong NOT to punish prisoners! Criminal know right from wrong. Its an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Shylock demanded a pound of flesh from the Merchant of Venice, and rightly so, for a well-functioning society is predicated on concepts of justice and responsibility.
But before anyone starts plugging in the electric chair, consider the latest neuroscience research on the brains of psychopaths. When normal people make moral decisions, a brain area called the amygdala lights up – but in psychopaths this amygdala light that guides conscience and moral behavior has long gone out.
Now, they didn’t ask to be born with the broken amygdala that pushed them into a criminal career. So what’s a good citizen to do when faced with criminals with broken brains? Isn’t it IMMORAL of us to punish them as harshly as we do? Free will is not as free as you think, and for some the die are cast early in life. Can we in good conscience really blame them?
But at what price justice you may say? Is this just a slippery slope to hell, an irresponsible society, and ultimately Armageddon? Mayhap, but consider Portia’s point in the trial of Antonio, the Merchant of Venice”, when she said:
“So, good citizens of Locust Walk, though justice be thy plee, consider this. That in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, but that same prayer doth render us all to the deeds of mercy”
So before you flick the switch on the electric chair, think of another action – turn the other cheek in the name of neurocriminology. It is wrong to punish prisoners.