Prisoners 'could serve 1,000 year sentence in eight hours'

[Ichingcarpenter]

Future biotechnology could be used to make prisoners feel as if they were serving a 1,000 year sentence, a team of scientists claim

Future biotechnology could be used to trick a prisoner's mind into thinking they have served a 1,000 year sentence, a group of scientists have claimed.

Philosopher Rebecca Roache is in charge of a team of scholars focused upon the ways futuristic technologies might transform punishment. Dr Roache claims the prison sentence of serious criminals could be made worse by extending their lives.
Speaking to Aeon magazine, Dr Roache said drugs could be developed to distort prisoners' minds into thinking time was passing more slowly.

"There are a number of psychoactive drugs that distort people’s sense of time, so you could imagine developing a pill or a liquid that made someone feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence," she said.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10697529/Prisoners-could-serve-1000-year-sentence-in-eight-hours.html


No doubt it will happen just as Philip K.Dick wrote about.

Cheney ............ sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree.

[warrior1]

1. that would be stupid thing to do

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I agree it should be outlawed and a war crime

just like waterboarding.

[Ilsa]

3. Geez. Instead of manipulating their minds for time, why don't

they search for a way to change their brains to create better understanding of why committing a crime will hurt them? I'd rather see greed, hate, jealousy "cut" out of their brains with drugs. I know it wouldn't be easy, but eradicating poverty might be a step in the right direction, too.

[enough]

22. Good thought. (nt)

[Fawke Em]

37. Shhhh.... you're making sense!

The M.I.C. doesn't like that!

[Codeine]

4. Five years in the isocubes, citizen.

[Bad Thoughts]

5. This was an episode of Deep Space Nine

Hard Time: Miles O'Brien suffers through a 15 year sentence that takes place entirely in his mind. During the imprisonment, he is made to feel extreme hunger, which drives him to kill an (imaginary) inmate. Given the nature of the episode, how one imagines they spend their time would be subject to manipulation and abuse.

[Orrex]

7. Coincidentally, most episodes of DS9 felt like a 15-year sentence

[Bad Thoughts]

8. Thoroughly disagree. eom

[Orrex]

15. Yeah, I know

Last edited Sun Mar 16, 2014, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

DS9 fans think it's the bee's knees, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I'm a Trek fan from way back, and I made a serious effort to like it, but I just couldn't get into it. Too much boring Bajoran spirituality, too much boring Klingon political upheaval, and too much Dominion story arc.

Odo was very cool, though. I'll give them that much.

[Bad Thoughts]

30. Like or not, I don't think it's surprising that it would be more relevant to this question ...

... than any of the other series. Indeed, manipulation of memory as a means of punishment has been explored by many science fiction series, but they always stop short of describing recovery. The particular episode in question, Hard Time, does more to examine what could be achieved through this type of punishment and whether it truly renders the individual able to function in society. I am not the only one in this thread to suggest that an experience of profound isolation might not render an individual able to function socially. Indeed, could they not leave such a situation with an urge for self-destruction that might hurt others?

[Orrex]

31. To be fair, I was simply complaining about the series

Don't get me started on the scenery-chewing by Brooks and Visitor.

As to the rest, you're correct that it's a common theme in science fiction, and it would almost certainly have a profoundly damaging effect upon the psyche. Based on the fact that we're even discussing this, I wouldn't have thought it a matter for dispute.

[Lost_Count]

13. At least it wasn't Voyager...

Take every annoying trait of every person on a previous Trek series, roll em up and off the the Delta quadrant with 'em...

http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/6-reasons-star-trek-voyager-worked.html

[backscatter712]

6. Of course, the American Psychological Association wouldn't allow such practices.

Look at how well they supervised interrogations at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib!

[Nye Bevan]

9. Reminds me of the Stephen King short story "The Jaunt"

The father spares his children the gruesome semi-apocryphal account of the first human to be Jaunted awake, a condemned murderer offered a full pardon for agreeing to the experiment. The man "came through" and immediately suffered a massive heart attack, living just long enough to utter a single cryptic phrase: "It's eternity in there..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jaunt

Of course in real life such a concept is disgusting and immoral. The only punishment I support is prison time in safe, humane conditions.

[Inkfreak]

42. Great short story. I thought the same thing. (nt)

[TlalocW]

10. Well, as long as they pick up some sort of flute-playing skills

Like Picard did, I can't see how this could be harmful.

TlalocW

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. But if the prisoner is unreformed then all we did was --

Give them 1,000 years worth of axe-grinding and releasing them back into an unsuspecting society in a matter of hours.


By the way. My dad had a term for this --

Parenting

[IDemo]

12. So instead of using it to make people feel they'd had a long wonderful life,

The first application that comes to their toxic minds is one of a punitive nature?

[Orrex]

14. Nothing new under the sun.

It's the same mindset that uses non-lethal weapons like tear gas to flush "the enemy" out of its protected cover so that they can be gunned down more conveniently.

If they do implement this 1000-year torture, you can bet that they'll apply some sort of grotesque physical pain at the same time, so you get to feel like you've spent a millennium with some part of your anatomy in a vice.

[Bad Thoughts]

16. Why would they be more useful if they come out with a sense of severe isolation?

I don't see how it would be psychologically better for society if the punishment is a severe form of trauma.

[Tom Ripley]

25. +1000

[Heidi]

17. It would be wise to plan for the social consequences

of executing a 1,000-year sentence in eight hours. After eight hours, the person is released with mental anguish of a person who has served a 1,000-year sentence.

And then what?

[NuclearDem]

18. So we just skip straight to the psychological torture now.

Fucking with people's minds like this should be illegal.

[Mojo Electro]

19. This is sick.

The very idea of this is just so diabolical and horrifying, torturing people for "1,000 years" in prison, making moments seem like years. What type of sick, vengeful person even considers this?

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[Tom Ripley]

24. +1000

[Iggo]

28. Punishment Fetishists.

Also known as sadistic fucks.

[Mojo Electro]

29. That's exactly what they are.

Cannot relate.

[Schema Thing]

20. Salvia divinorum turns 5 minutes into an hour

[Auntie Bush]

21. This could save a lot of money.

Put prisoners with say a 10 year sentence. Put them in jail for one year so they have some memories of jail is like. Give them this drug that makes them feel like it's been 10+ years and release them. It would have the same restraint as if they had really served 10 years. Look at all the money we could save on incarcerating people. Too bad it isn't possible.

[Tom Ripley]

23. Other than highly refined emotional sadism, what in the fuck is the point?

sick shit

[Vashta Nerada]

26. What a gross misuse of technological advancement.

[Iggo]

27. Torture.

[Demo_Chris]

32. This is a horror. nt

[yuiyoshida]

33. Kinda like Total Recall

[mathematic]

34. That's not how I remember Total Recall

[yuiyoshida]

35. Hahaha...

I almost used that image...but went with the latter movie...

[exboyfil]

38. Arnie may have been a lousy governor

but he made some very enjoyable movies. I have no intention of seeing the Total Recall remake. Same can be said for Robocop. I wish I had never seen the Rollerball remake. It seems only westerns can have good remakes (True Grit and 3:10 to Yuma).

[DavidDvorkin]

41. I did see the Total Recall remake

and you have made the correct decision.

[jakeXT]

43. Now he is inviting people into his tank

[Spirochete]

36. The Outer Limits

had this in an episode called "The Sentence". The inventor was pushing hard to get the technology approved - until he went through it himself. Then he did a fast 180.

[Shandris]

39. Do we get the three seashells afterwards?

"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for violation of the Verbal Morality Statute."

[Fla_Democrat]

40. All the scars are on the inside

All the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure that there's anything left of me

[Kelvin Mace]

44. Only a Murdoch rage

would think this a good idea.