Annals of crime
An Italian court has cut the sentence given to a convicted murderer by a year because he has genes linked to violent behaviour—the first time that behavioural genetics has affected a sentence passed by a European court. But researchers contacted by Nature have questioned whether the decision was based on sound science.***
“90% of all murders are committed by people with a Y chromosome—males. Should we always give males a shorter sentence?” says Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London. “I have low MAOA activity but I don’t go around attacking people.”
Farahany points out that prosecutors could use the same genetic evidence to argue for tougher sentences by suggesting people with such genes are inherently ‘bad’.
“The question is where do you stop,” Jones adds.
I work as an Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (although this site and its content are my own).
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it. I am interested in the relevant technologies and especially the attendant privacy and other ethical/legal/social issues.
This blog may also discuss some of my non-genome interests or, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music, etc etc."
The header image comes from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's multimedia performance piece, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome."