informing biological policies

Question 1

what are some examples of informing biological policies?

Answer 1

-diet
-drug treatments
-eugenics
-death penalty

Question 2

what is the neurochemical’s diet?

Answer 2

-neurochemicals influence brain chemistry and can be altered by any diet - e.g., food with serotonin (salmon, tuna)
-tartrazine inceases hyperactivity
-gesch (2002) studied 231 volunteers who took vitamin and fatty acid supplements which effected their neurochemicals and placebo.
-agression dropped 35% and 6.7% in the placebo group - reduced sugar diet reduces anti-social behaviour

Question 3

evaluate the effectiveness of the neurochemical’s diet

Answer 3

strengths:
-increases a healthy diet/ improves mood - takes away agressiveness attached with committing crime
weaknesses:
-some parts of the diet may effect negativley- tartarazine increases hyperactivity
-when the prisoners leave, they may not follow the diet

Question 4

what are drug treatments?

Answer 4

-chemical castration: sex offenders are treated with ssri’s to treat ocd and sexual fantasies
-anti -androgen drugs: reduces testosterone, making the user impotent
-e.g., scandanavia has reduced reoffending from 40% to 5%
-other drugs:
-antabuse: reduce the desire for alchohol and to stop drinking (side effects - nausea, sweating)
-methadone: treats heroin addiction by reducing symtoms and cravings (risk of heart disease, lung disease)

Question 5

evaluate the effectiness of drug treatment reducing crime

Answer 5

strengths:
-anti-adrogen drugs (reduces testosterone/ impotent) in scandanvia, criminality dropped from 40% to 5%
weaknesses:
-unethical: goes against human rights to take away that choice

Question 6

what are eugenics?

Answer 6

-eugenic policies (initially introduced by glalton, suggested that the genetically unfit should be prevented from breeding
-e.g., include genetic screenings, birth control, sterilisation and abortion
-e.g., nazi sterilisation programme: wanted to purify the aryan race by elminating those who were deemed unfit to breed (mentally/ physically disabled) - 400,000 people were sterilised against their will and 70,000 were killed under the nazi’s policy
-in 1927, the us supreme court ruled that it was legal to compulsorily sterilise the ‘unfit’ including those with learning difficulties to protect the state

Question 7

evaluate the effectiveness of eugenic policies

Answer 7

strengths:
-practical value: cutting off criminal bloodlines does reduce criminality overall (brunner - dutch family with 28 criminals - eugenics would stop)
weaknesses:
-unethical: does it go against human rights??

Question 8

what is the death penalty?

Answer 8

-state-sanctioned punishment of killing someone for a crime
-initially occured to deter people away from crime
-in the uk, death penalty was abolished for five years in 1965 temporarily before fully abolishing it in 1969 as the murder rates were not changing
-brings retributions
-statistics: south usa accounted for 80% of all executions

Question 9

evaluate the death penalty

Answer 9

strengths
-deterrant
-justice
-reduced crime
weaknesses:
-unethical
-no suffering
-innocent?? (carlos deluna charged for homocide)