How to spot a murderer's brain

The Guardian ^ | Saturday 11 May 2013 | Tim Adams

[null and void]

I love FR, posts like yours are way.

[null and void]

way? No way, why!

[JohnBrowdie]

It’s inside a turban?

[null and void]

*ouch*

[formosa]

Nurture has a lot to do with brain development (meaning parental interaction with a child). Children who are abused or neglected do not have proper brain development. The two go hand in hand.

[daniel1212]

At that point, a sane society only has the option of recognizing that this is a case where the criminal MUST be eliminated.

Some would argue this has a larger application (not really)

Why should a brain defect give a man the right to again run free and murder another?

The problem is there is probability but not absolute proof: the researcher himself had a brain close to murderers, and the power this gives to murderous governments is too great. As in the Bible, evidence 2 or 3 eyewitness for capital crimes , with false witnesses receiving the penalty their false testimony incurred), we must wait till the crime occurred.

[daniel1212]

He has forfeited his right to continue to be a clear and present danger to his neighbors.

But as a evangelical born again Christian, i know of many credible testimonies of souls who were radically changed by Christ, though they before were manifestly very prone to crime and even considered incorruptible. Nicky Cruz of "The cross and the switchblade " (worth reading) is one case, whiile the Apostles Paul before conversion was "injurious, "haling men and men" and "compelling them to blaspheme," but became just as passionate in love to save as before he was to destroy.

"Great sinners make great saints" is often true.

[caww]

“Great sinners make great saints” is often true.

I agree this can be the case....and for others who don’t appear to be “saints”... had we seen them before they knew Christ we’d reconsider being so judgemental.

[null and void]

I made that precise point in my first paragraph.

Then I hammered it home again in my last paragraph.

Was I not clear?

One must have the predisposing factors AND HAVE ACTED ON THEM to earn permanent removal from society.

[caww]

Oh that’s funnny! Normal Cell and an Obama cell!

[null and void]

Children who are abused or neglected do not have proper brain development.

That's nice.

When adults with deficiencies in prefrontal lobes and/or amygdala improper brain development REGARDLESS OF CAUSE commit murder they need to be permanently removed from civil society.

There are plenty of abused, neglected and congenitally damaged children who manage to grow up to live full and productive lives.

[daniel1212]

Indeed. If one has committed a crime, conversion may not stay justice, but even Son of Sam evidently found Christ.

[caww]

....”conversion may not stay justice, but even Son of Sam evidently found Christ”.....

Same with the Thief on the cross....who assuredly is with the Lord.

[null and void]

"Great sinners make great saints" is often true.

"I'm now a saint" is far more often a ruse than true.

Show me a way of verifying that any prison conversion has turned a rabid dog into someone you personally would trust with you own children and we can talk.

Me? Not so much.

OTOH, suppose HiTech RedNeck's guess in post #10 is correct, that a genuine conversion is accompanied by demonstrable healing of brain structure or function?

Although a saint could be just the thing his fellow inmates need to be around, and I wouldn't want to deprive them of the benefit of his company, even I would consider allowing him to rejoin society under those circumstances.

[daniel1212]

One must have the predisposing factors AND HAVE ACTED ON THEM to earn permanent removal from society

Yes, but automatic permanency disallows that some can change, and are not slaves to predisposing factors. And the liberal mind would love to sentence political incorrectness according to alleged differences btwn liberals and conservatives (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/09/03/conservatives-and-liberals-have-different-brains-studies-show/#) . "Permanent" must fit the crime, with habitual offenders in less than capital crimes getting longer stretches.

[null and void]

ah! Yes, I am talking about capital and particularly heinous crimes.

[daniel1212]

While "jailhouse conversions" usually do not last once tested by the freedom of the world, it has been well evidenced to me personally that heartfelt evangelical conversion can manifest radical changes in heart and life that continue, while i believe many such as below can be substantiated (which does not mean a converted criminal must escape earthly justice):

Watch Charles's Story Now

Book

Hell On Church Street

On The 700 Club

Mary Scanlon: Healing the Scars of Rejection

Christine Thiel: A Mom Free from Hurt

Terry Strouss: At Peace with God

TESTIMONY

Charles Dudrey: Addicted to Crime

By Audra Smith
The 700 Club

CBN.com – As children, Charles Dudrey and his siblings endured every form of abuse at the hands of their own father. One violent episode sent Charles to the Mayo Clinic. His father slammed Charles’s head against a wall, sending him into a seizure.

“The diagnosis for me was grim, and the doctors wanted to do a frontal lobotomy on me to scrape the scar tissue off my brain from the physical abuse," Charles tells The 700 Club. "But my mother said no.”

At the age of 11, Charles witnessed the unthinkable, his mother’s murder. He later discovered that his father contracted the killing to continue his affair with the family babysitter.

“One evening, as the babysitter and her brother came home from being out with their friends, one of the friends picked up a loaded pistol that was on a counter in our home.He pulled the trigger, struck my mother and the bullet lodged in her heart. She died six hours later.”

In the end, no one was convicted of the crime. Immediately after the murder, Charles’s father immediately moved the family from Minnestoa to Illinois.
The family babysitter became Charles’s new stepmother.

“When we arrived in Illinois, the abuse seemed to intensify. We were treated very cruelly. All of the food was locked in cabinets.You’re continuously in fear of being beat or having urine thrown in your food or being pushed down the stairs. Any kind of abuse you can imagine, we experienced.”

In the spring of 1970, Charles graduated high school and ran away. He channeled his pent up anger into a life of crime. He says, “I had no respect for authority whatsoever. I wasn’t going to be told what to do. I wasn’t going to have anybody put their hands on me. I knew I had the power to defend myself and to do what it would take to never be abused or hit again. Anything I could to make money, to live fast, to be on the go, to rent cars, buy new clothes, to have some dope… anything to stay away from that authority, I did it. If I needed anything, I got it."

Charles was arrested for robbery and spent six years in prison.  Yet he exited the prison doors even more addicted to crime.

“I liked the drama. I like prying safes open with a big pry bar or running a check scam or doing a burglary.”

After 30 years of crime, Charles was in Washington State running from the law. The stress of his lifestyle was beginning to take a toll. He began to unravel after an incident with his new dog.   

“I happened to be giving the puppy a bath. He nipped my hand, and I slapped him. He nipped me again, I slapped him again, he started to whine and I started feeling guilty. It was just crazy. Of all the things I’d done, the assaults and the meaness in me, I’m feeling bad for hurting a dog?

“I found myself on a pier down along the river in our community, and I was down there bawling. I said, 'God, if You are available, if You really exist, I need You in my life right now. Jesus, if You are really true like they say on the television, then I need you now.

“All of the sudden, I just started to weep, and everything that was ugly in me started to come out. All of the abuse, all of the neglect, the pain that I had suffered in my life was just coming out. It was like within a matter of moments, all of the ugliness and pain was gone in my life and I just felt new! My life changed from that moment forward."

Charles completely gave up his life of crime and immediately started reading the Bible and going to church. 

"I was sitting in front of the TV watching the Christian Broadcasting Network. I had my Bible in my hand. I was just jacked up on Jesus!

"I stood before the altar one evening before church. There was a guest speaker there, and he said, 'I have a prophesy for you. The Lord is going to restore to you what the worm and the cankerworm has devoured. He is going to restore to you the mean things your father did to you. God is going to erase that in your life.' The Lord has been faithful to the 'T' in every aspect. “

Today, Charles has the chance to be the loving father he never had. Charles and his wife Diana have three children and eight grandchildren. 

“The things that are dearest to me in my life only came because Christ brought them into my life," he says. “I would say that no matter how deep the pain, no matter how strong the hurt, no matter how ugly it is, no matter what you have done, the Lord is standing now waiting to touch your heart and give you a new life and a relationship with Him.”

Jerry Balone: A Changed Man He was the baddest of the bad with a murder rap and life sentence in prison. No expected Jerry Balone to become a Christian.

Can God change your life?

God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.

[Fresh Wind]

[jughandle]

The one on the right looks like a teddy bear, how can that be the brain of a killer?

[null and void]

In roundish numbers there are 20,000 convicted murders in the US. I’m glad you can cite one instance of redemption.

Should we release the other 19,999 because of him?

No.

Should we be prepared to accurately recognize another extraordinary case like Mr. Balone? Yes, absolutely.

Same argument applies for the roughly 2,000,000 violent felons, there are/will be scores of Dudreys in that group.

Making the HUGE assumption that a brain scan can separate the wheat from the chaff, I’m willing to use this tool as an aid for determining which ones are legitimate changes of heart/conversions and factoring that in in decisions for parole and or early release.

I do believe in redemption, but my (or your) belief that a given felon safe to inflict on the general public would be poor policy.

*shrug* It occurs to me that a few months ago 3 of the 5 people living in my house were convicted felons...