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Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?

Soon it may be possible to promote the rehabilitation of criminal offenders through neurointerventions (interventions which exert direct physical, chemical or biological effects on the brain). Some jurisdictions already utilise neurointerventions to diminish the risk of sexual or drug-related reoffe...

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Autor principal: Dore-Horgan, Emma
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10229454/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37266329
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11572-022-09630-y
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author Dore-Horgan, Emma
author_facet Dore-Horgan, Emma
author_sort Dore-Horgan, Emma
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description Soon it may be possible to promote the rehabilitation of criminal offenders through neurointerventions (interventions which exert direct physical, chemical or biological effects on the brain). Some jurisdictions already utilise neurointerventions to diminish the risk of sexual or drug-related reoffending. And investigation is underway into several other neurointerventions that might also have rehabilitative applications within criminal justice—for example, pharmacotherapy to reduce aggression or impulsivity. Ethical debate on the use of neurointerventions to facilitate rehabilitation—henceforth ‘neurorehabilitation’—has proceeded on two assumptions: that we have instrumental reasons for employing neurorehabilitation (e.g. because it helps protect the public from crime); and that its permissibility depends upon whether its use unjustifiably infringes offenders’ rights. This paper defends a different, hitherto neglected thought. I argue we have rights-based reasons to offer neurorehabilitation to offenders—in other words, that offenders have a moral right to neurorehabilitation. I identify three considerations which support a moral right to conventional rehabilitative interventions—(1) as a countermeasure to the debilitating side-effects of punishment; (2) as a derivative right of the right to hope for renewed liberty; and (3) as compensation for structural injustice. I argue these considerations extend to support a moral right to neurorehabilitation in the following instance: when neurorehabilitation would be part of the most effective package for facilitating rehabilitation, and can be carried out at reasonable cost. I then defend my argument against potential objections, including the objection that neurorehabilitation is a bad option for offenders to have and the charge of over-medicalisation.
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spelling pubmed-102294542023-06-01 Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation? Dore-Horgan, Emma Crim Law Philos Original Paper Soon it may be possible to promote the rehabilitation of criminal offenders through neurointerventions (interventions which exert direct physical, chemical or biological effects on the brain). Some jurisdictions already utilise neurointerventions to diminish the risk of sexual or drug-related reoffending. And investigation is underway into several other neurointerventions that might also have rehabilitative applications within criminal justice—for example, pharmacotherapy to reduce aggression or impulsivity. Ethical debate on the use of neurointerventions to facilitate rehabilitation—henceforth ‘neurorehabilitation’—has proceeded on two assumptions: that we have instrumental reasons for employing neurorehabilitation (e.g. because it helps protect the public from crime); and that its permissibility depends upon whether its use unjustifiably infringes offenders’ rights. This paper defends a different, hitherto neglected thought. I argue we have rights-based reasons to offer neurorehabilitation to offenders—in other words, that offenders have a moral right to neurorehabilitation. I identify three considerations which support a moral right to conventional rehabilitative interventions—(1) as a countermeasure to the debilitating side-effects of punishment; (2) as a derivative right of the right to hope for renewed liberty; and (3) as compensation for structural injustice. I argue these considerations extend to support a moral right to neurorehabilitation in the following instance: when neurorehabilitation would be part of the most effective package for facilitating rehabilitation, and can be carried out at reasonable cost. I then defend my argument against potential objections, including the objection that neurorehabilitation is a bad option for offenders to have and the charge of over-medicalisation. Springer Netherlands 2022-03-29 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10229454/ /pubmed/37266329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11572-022-09630-y Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Paper
Dore-Horgan, Emma
Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?
title Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?
title_full Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?
title_fullStr Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?
title_full_unstemmed Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?
title_short Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?
title_sort do criminal offenders have a right to neurorehabilitation?
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10229454/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37266329
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11572-022-09630-y
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