The vision of
legendary criminologist Cesare Lombroso to use scientific theories of
individual causes of crime as a basis for screening and prevention programmes
targeting individuals at risk for future criminal behaviour has resurfaced,
following advances in genetics, neuroscience and psychiatric epidemiology. This
article analyses this idea and maps its ethical implications from a public
health ethical standpoint. Twenty-seven variants of the new Lombrosian vision
of forensic screening and prevention are distinguished, and some scientific and
technical limitations are noted. Some lures, biases and structural factors,
making the application of the Lombrosian idea likely in spite of weak evidence
are pointed out and noted as a specific type of ethical aspect. Many classic
and complex ethical challenges for health screening programmes are shown to
apply to the identified variants and the choice between them, albeit with
peculiar and often provoking variations. These variations are shown to
actualize an underlying theoretical conundrum in need of further study,
pertaining to the relationship between public health ethics and the ethics and
values of criminal law policy.
Introduction
Nineteenth-century Italian anthropologist and
criminology and forensic psychiatry pioneer Cesare Lombroso is notorious for
his idea (first published in Italian in 1876, see Parmelee, 1911) that crime originates from
specific individual anomalies, and that a scientific mapping of these should be
used for preventive criminal policy purposes. Ideally, ‘criminal science’
should facilitate early identification of ‘moral insanity’ to foresee which
individuals risk developing criminal behaviour and to instigate suitable therapeutic,
preventive or mitigating action (Lombroso, 1911; Parmelee, 1911). Lombroso’s own specific
ideas, as those of his US parallel Isaac Ray (1861), regarding the purely biological
nature of the causes of crime were criticized early on for paying too little
attention to psychological and social factors (Ellwood, 1912), and the very idea of a
biological explanation of crime was criticized for undermining the institution
of criminal justice (Gray, 1858).1 A
student of Lombroso, Enrico Ferri (1895), who shared Lombroso’s
basic assumption that criminal behaviour results from factors behind the
individual’s control, included social factors as possible causes for
criminality, as may indeed have been Lombroso’s own intention (Gibson, 2002). This view was also endorsed by
the Swedish psychiatrist Olof Kinberg (1935), who argued that crime could
and should be prevented by detaining the very sick criminals, try to treat
those who can be treated, but also to reform society to eradicate poverty and
ignorance...
Below: Map of generic new Lombrosian strategies
Full article at: http://goo.gl/bia3eZ
By:
Susanna Radovic, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory
of Science & Centre for Ethics, Law and Mental Health, University of
Gothenburg
More at: https://twitter.com/hiv_insight
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