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Genetic Biomarker Research of Callous-Unemotional Traits in Children: Implications for the Law and Policymaking
There is a burgeoning scientific and ethical literature on the use of biomarkers—such as genes or brain scan results—and biological interventions to predict and prevent crime. This literature on biopredicting and biopreventing crime focuses almost exclusively on crimes that are physical, violent, and/or sexual in nature—often called blue-collar crimes—while giving little attention to less conventional crimes such as economic and environmental offences, also known as white-collar crimes. We argue here that this skewed focus is unjustified: white-collar crime is likely far costlier than blue-collar crime in money, health, and lives lost. Moreover, attempts to biopredict and bioprevent blue-collar crime may entail adopting potentially unfair measures that target individuals who are already socio-economically disadvantaged, thus compounding pre-existing unfairness. We argue, therefore, that we ought to extend the study of bioprediction and bioprevention to white-collar crime as a means of more efficiently and fairly responding to crime. We suggest that identifying biomarkers for certain psychopathic traits, which appear to be over-represented among senior positions in corporate and perhaps political organisations, is one avenue through which this research can be broadened to include white-collar crime.
Neuroimaging showing brain abnormalities is increasingly being introduced in criminal court proceedings to argue that a defendant could not control his behavior and should not be held responsible for it. But imaging has questionable probative value because it does not directly capture brain function or a defendant's mental states at the time of a criminal act. Advanced techniques could transform imaging from a coarse-grained measure of correlations between brain states and behavior to a fine-grained measure of causal connections between them. Even if this occurs, bias and other attitudes may unduly influence jurors' interpretation of the data. Moreover, judges' decisions about whether neuroimaging data is legally relevant and admissible are normative decisions based on more than empirical evidence. Advanced neuroimaging will better inform assessments of criminal responsibility but will not supplant or explain away the psychological and normative foundation of the criminal law.
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