I heartily recommend "Why We Snap"

http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Snap-Understanding-Circuit-eboo...

and although a boring read, "Sex and War"

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism-ebo...

for a different perspective on your statements. The violent impulse is probably available to all humans, and it is plausible to say that all humans under the right circumstances can manifest extreme violence.

So it becomes details. How are the various impulses moderated under various conditions. It is the precise opposite of black and white, in my opinion.

edit: I am not excusing violence or advocating we tolerate antisocial behavior. I am urging compassion and empathy for people whose brains have made one or more decisions devastatingly incorrectly as a result of what may be an extremely tiny variation in programming, or an edge case that caused their brains to make the wrong decision.

OK, but why does the US have more murders per capita thank most other countries? What could be done to stop those people becoming murders? Or what pathways send people towards a life in prison?

The original intent of incarceration was to remove those from society who we could not trust to peacefully participate in it.

That intent is naturally lost today - the mass incarceration of drug users being only a portion of a larger pie of injustice and horror committed on a daily basis in the US that includes other atrocities such as police brutality and civil asset forfeiture.

Obviously in cases where prisoners kill one another, in a sane world, the constable and other administration of the prison would be held accountable, as would any officers who betrayed their duty to let it happen. It is always someones fault you put individuals who we deemed untrustable in the presence of others to be placed in circumstances to harm others again.

Unsurprisingly, the reality is that locking people up is incredibly expensive. We spend more per prisoner than we do per dozen students in public schools each year. The practical costs of incarceration are huge, let alone the social and economic ones. It should be unsurprising the people are less receptive to tremendous taxes to pay for, by far, the highest incarceration rates in the world.

i wonder why "animal" surfaced here at all. Animals kill for food or self-defense, it isn't a voluntary act, it is what they have to do. Killing for other reasons, voluntary killings, murders - it is all almost exclusively human trait. In particular, animals don't do murders, it is human invention.

Well if you see them as biological machines, the correct answer is "training". Currently, putting these biological machines into these prisons trains them to use violence as a problem-solving tool and trains them in the understanding that they will not be protected by the authorities and they must look after themselves (with their problem-solving tool; violence).

These prisons are a way of training people to be criminals.

Everyone has a breaking point. I repeat, everyone.

Most murders are unplanned and unrepeatable - the wife who snaps after years of neglect or emotional abuse. The husband who kills his 90 year old wife, of 70 years, in the old people's home. The argument between lifelong friends and an unlucky punch. (All cases I recall hearing in the news in the last few months).

Apart from anything else it's very unlikely they'll ever kill again. It's probable few, if any, of them expected to ever kill... Until they did.

They need rehabilitation, perhaps anger management or support, before they become unemployed, unemployable and institutionalised in a brutal prison system.

The pre-mediated murder or mass shooting are somewhat different as they required thought, perhaps much planning.

Of course they need imprisonment, but equally need rehabilitation, perhaps education, perhaps mental health issues, perhaps anger management.

The simple fact is prison, in and of itself, does not work. Other than as training at being a better criminal. In the US prison system I suspect it trains you to solve far more of your problems with violence - not fewer.

It might not be fashionable to suggest therapy, treatment, rehabilitation and education. It costs money after all. To not offer those, as a matter of course, is helping create lifelong criminals.

Of course there will be recidivism after rehabilitation. Mistakes too. How many people who leave prison now go on to commit more crimes? Most of them.

If you mean "human as animal", then _all_ human behavior is animal behavior. Saying "some of us have more animal behavior" is really more of an indicator that you think they are more animal than you, despite both being human.

Your statement is dehumanizing. If you don't want it to be interpreted as such, then make better statements.