Hundreds of Australian children aged ten to 13 are in juvenile detention. Legal and medical experts say we must raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14.
Which way does neurobiological evidence tip the scales in sentencing?
Alexander Kirch/Shutterstock.com
How do jurors use different kinds of information about mental illness when making sentencing decisions? An experiment finds that neurobiological evidence could harm or help defendants.
Probes that can transmit electricity inside the skull raise questions about personal autonomy and responsibility.
Hellerhoff
Where does responsibility lie if a person acts under the influence of their brain implant? As neurotechnologies advance, a neuroethicist and a legal expert write that now’s the time to hash it out.
At age ten, children in England, Northern Ireland and Wales can be found guilty of a criminal offence. They can face trial and be placed in detention. We don’t allow children of ten to hold a driver’s…
Imagine that Brian promises to drive you to the airport but never shows up, and you miss your flight. When you confront Brian, he tells you that he remembered his promise but decided to watch a movie instead…
Although addiction is often characterised as a disease and not a crime, it is criminal to possess and use certain drugs.
e_monk/Flickr
In today’s article in our series Biology and Blame, Jeanette Kennett considers an inconsistency in the law’s approach to compulsion – addicts are responsible but others compelled to harmful behaviours…
Psychiatrists wanted people found ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ to be dispatched to places like the Asylum for Criminal Lunatics Broadmoor.
Illustrated London News, 1867/ Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Are people with “diseases of the mind” responsible for their criminal acts? In the latest article in our series Biology and Blame, Ivan Crozier looks back at how psychiatrists tried to carve out a role…
Genetics is just the latest specialist knowledge threatening to take the question of criminal responsibility away from law and hand it over to science.
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Welcome to Biology and Blame, a series of articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility. Today, Arlie Loughnan considers the challenge to the legal system…