RE: intentional misuse

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 12:23 PM 2/29/00 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Supporting an enhanced level of criminality
>solely because radioactive materials are involved would reinforce a
>perception that there is something intrinsically evil about the radiation,
>not the criminal behavior.  

Something devoutly to be avoided, IMHO.

If someone takes a swing at your head with a baseball bat and misses,
should the person not be prosecuted because he missed? Of course not. If
the radioactive material was used in an attempt to harm someone, then
criminal prosecution is appropriate - the hard part is proving intent to
harm. In the baseball bat example, it's easy to prove, but with rad
material it gets much more difficult. The guilty party can play the part of
the victim, and the public can't wait to believe it. But the idea of
prosecuting intentional misuse seems more appropriate than ratcheting up
regulation of the university, which is just as much the victim of the
misuse as the person attacked with the rad material.

Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
bflood@slac.stanford.edu
(650) 926-3793

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