Implications of not having free will

[Dystopia]

The most serious issue by far is that criminals couldn't be convicted because their guilt was predetermined by variables they couldn't control - Committing crimes becomes a chain of reactions [naturalistic] that the subject doesn't control. This is why in criminal law we assume free will exists at least as a fiction, otherwise it would compromise the entire system.

I've always found this concept to be somewhat confusing; so the criminal's actions were predetermined and uncontrollable, but somehow our putting them on trial and in prison for breaking the law isn't?

If you're going to make the first claim I think you're pretty safe in just throwing your hands up and giving up on the whole scenario as beyond your control.

Interesting perspective - But still leaves the problem of lack of reasoning to consider someone guilty - The whole criminal system stands by the principle of guilt, if you are not guilty you can't serve time, at the most you can be sent to a mental institution (which can be worse than jail)... The argument of uncontrollability is good but it loses its consistence when I could use it to justify doing any act of cruelty or violence (me, or any other individual or collective group of people/institutions) - And it would be seen as inevitable... Deterministic propositions have led to inefficient and unfair criminal systems like in the XVIII/XIX century - Crimes like negligent ones weren't really considered crimes because there was no brain activity directed towards guilty intentions, and therefore we couldn't convict a negligent, no matter how serious crime... Nowadays we have considered [I studied it like this] the existence of naturalistic sciences in a parallelism with Human's culture, philosophical and social side - And both determine how criminal law deals with issues, namely when it comes to guilt - In this scenario negligence is already punishable, as well as crimes by omission.