Questions About Shaken Baby Syndrome
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
My involvement with one tragic case has forever marred my perception of both law enforcement and the District Attorney's office. Before, I always believed that I would cooperate with detectives if I witnessed a crime. Now, I think I would keep my mouth shut, because there's too much risk of an idiotic prosecutor charging you for saying absolutely nothing. At best, your reputation is ruined; at worst, you spend the rest of your life in prison.
Welcome to America.
Forensic "science" is definitely horseshit though. The National Academy of Sciences took a look at the field a few years ago and released a report: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf. If you look past the diplomacy, what you see is barely-concealed horror and the conclusion that basically only DNA testing is at all "scientific."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-fo...
> Forensic "science" is definitely horseshit though.
Of course it is! Any adjectivized Science shall be horse shit. There's only one Science, the one individuals can try and reproduce the findings of others.
Forensic Science, also known as "Good enough for the courts' interests".
EDIT: rayiner:
> How are lay judges going to go and make the determination of when a seemingly legitimate "science" is legitimate enough for admissibility in court?
Shouldn't they have thought of that before they created the Courts and named themselves Judges?
How did that happen and no one asked themselves "but what if we're not experts in a scientific specialty and the decision requires knowing that field?"
It's kind of late to ask this question now. Goes to show what a sham this circus really is, that they don't have a method to cope with a daily occurrence.
It's a hard problem for the courts to tackle. How are lay judges going to go and make the determination of when a seemingly legitimate "science" is legitimate enough for admissibility in court? Reputable universities give out degrees in forensic science. Ultimately they're the root cause of this mess. IMHO higher education has a social obligation to curate these disciplines.
Well, (a) that's not how it happened (judges didn't create the courts, and judges don't name themselves judges), and (b) they do have a method for dealing with matters requiring expertise.
Now, its a mechanism that is highly susceptible to resource imbalances between the litigating parties (in which respect it is hardly unique -- lots of things in the legal system are susceptible to that), and its one that has been very effectively abused in the case of forensic (particularly, e.g., fiber analysis) science by the biggest-resource litigant around, the government. But its not a question that has been ignored and not addressed.
Here, the crime seems to be usually without motive, except perhaps a short-term rage. Presumably, the accused was unable to stop their actions (no point in deterrence) and would rarely be in such a position again (compared to serial criminals or crimes caused by incompetence).
I find it a particular pity that more correctional institutions aren't focused on exactly that: correction. I have the impression that even the examples you cite of "other proceedings more on [sic] deterrence .. or prevention" are rather retribution-based. I would be in favour of less incarceration and more rehabilitation and reinsertion into society as happy/useful participants. Aside from a minority of actual sociopaths and/or sadists which might or might not be a result of nature as opposed to nurture, i believe that most people would not commit the crimes they commit if they had access to better welfare/education/neighbourhoods/etc. It seems like much (even violent) crime is more of a symptom than an end in itself...
But i may be wrong there.
While I agree that mere incarceration is often fruitless in terms of helping the person being incarcerated, one must be careful to not replace prison with brainwashing, to put it bluntly. That is, rehabilitation might work with narcotic addictions, but social issues (I am categorizing violence as a social issue, because it necessarily involves interaction between two or more persons) revolve around opinions, beliefs, conscious and unconscious assumptions about others, etc.
I recall movies and TV show episodes revolving around the totalitarian nature of some criminal justice system that seeks to fix inmates's behavior through overt (torture) or covert (therapy, interviewing, social engineering, etc.) means.
> I believe that most people would not commit the crimes they commit if they had access to better welfare/education/neighbourhoods/etc.
This is essentially the idea that poverty causes crime, which is a controversial position. This might be why you have gotten downvoted.
We already do. Some crimes requires an individual to go to therapy and if they don't meet certain goals, they are held in prison longer (or otherwise not given certain privileges while in prison). But often those therapist are working with outdated therapy models and sometimes working on assumptions that aren't even agreed upon as true.
This also covers a lot of cases of murder. For example, someone who kills their spouse having caught them cheating... as long as they stay out of relationships they won't be in that same situation again. We do reduce the penalty if done in a fit of rage (second degree murder instead of first degree), but we often still add a lengthy sentence still.