I absolutely agree that punishment is in most cases not productive in the slightest. It certainly isn't a deterrent when criminality is pathological. In reference to irrational criminality, at least.
A friend of my father who is a clinical psychologist and works at a London acute MH unit always spoke of punishment as being absolutely useless in practice. And just speaking on a personal level I don't believe in the concept of penal harm beyond deprivation of liberty. I think all we have a duty to do, as a society, is to remove bad people to prevent them from doing more bad things. Deprivation of liberty is enough. Many would disagree.
I have read some of Dr. James Fallon's stuff on the "warrior gene". Absolute fascinating; though I've not read anything about the possibility of any related treatments, beyond theory. All I know from my own understanding is that pathologically "bad" people are probably the hardest psychological cases to treat in practice - incidentally, my dad's friend also said quite bluntly that personality disorders "are untreatable" - assuming they don't end up running corporate banks or countries, of course.
(, Tue 16 Sep 2014, 14:39, Share, Reply)