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> When they're 40 they'll be a different person. Is there any evidence of that? I say this with sympathy as I suspect some number of violent individuals have

> When they're 40 they'll be a different person. Is there any evidence of that? I say this with sympathy as I suspect some number of violent individuals have as-yet-undetected genetic abnormalities that would make them 'blameless' for their actions if we could track it down. However that wouldn't change their behavior. My son has a non-violent known genetic abnormality and in 20/40/60 years his behavior wouldn't change unless some effective treatment is found. So I think there needs to be some realism injected into this discussion. There are people I would not want as next door neighbors even after they've served a long prison sentence.

mcpackieh 3y ago
There's a lot of evidence that most people mellow out with age, age-crime curves show this clearly with dramatic peaks in the late teens. Teenagers and young adults are more prone to acting impulsively, with less foresight for the future. There may be some people who are irreparably 'genetically damaged' from birth and will never improve, but this isn't the general case.
- tombert 3y ago
  I feel like most of us kind of intuitively know this at a somewhat visceral level. If a two year old does something obnoxious (e.g. throws food at you), I think most people won't be nearly as upset as if a 40 year old did. I know when my nieces or nephews do something annoying, it's substantially easier for me to roll my eyes and say something like "they're just kids, don't get angry with them" than it is when a full-on grownup annoys me. I'm quite confident that 18 year old me was still basically a child. I never committed any violent crimes when I was 18, but I did a lot of other dumb irrational things that I don't think I'd do now.
knorker 3y ago
In addition to the other reply you got from someone else: I'm not saying they'll necessarily be great people. But people do change. Especially the understanding of consequences is not fully developed in your early 20s. So even if they are basically the same people, they would be much less likely to act on it at 40 than at 20. And really, we're talking about deterrence of committing crimes, not deterrence of bad moral character.

mcpackieh 3y ago

There's a lot of evidence that most people mellow out with age, age-crime curves show this clearly with dramatic peaks in the late teens. Teenagers and young adults are more prone to acting impulsively, with less foresight for the future. There may be some people who are irreparably 'genetically damaged' from birth and will never improve, but this isn't the general case.

tombert 3y ago
I feel like most of us kind of intuitively know this at a somewhat visceral level. If a two year old does something obnoxious (e.g. throws food at you), I think most people won't be nearly as upset as if a 40 year old did. I know when my nieces or nephews do something annoying, it's substantially easier for me to roll my eyes and say something like "they're just kids, don't get angry with them" than it is when a full-on grownup annoys me. I'm quite confident that 18 year old me was still basically a child. I never committed any violent crimes when I was 18, but I did a lot of other dumb irrational things that I don't think I'd do now.

knorker 3y ago

In addition to the other reply you got from someone else: I'm not saying they'll necessarily be great people. But people do change. Especially the understanding of consequences is not fully developed in your early 20s. So even if they are basically the same people, they would be much less likely to act on it at 40 than at 20. And really, we're talking about deterrence of committing crimes, not deterrence of bad moral character.