Since the birth of theories linking genetics to crime and delinquency, the theology of crime has inadvertently become associated with neurological deficits. Accordingly, these theories have developed into the introduction of the study of criminology and in the recent years, neurocriminology. Both disciplines and more specifically the latter, aims to study and better understand the reasons why criminal actions are made and how the actor arrived at the decision to offend the criminal law. Put simply, one point of central focus in neurocriminology is to examine the extent of freewill to which decisions to act are made, and the burden of hindrance that social environment and genetics, amongst many other facts, plays in influencing those decisions. As such, it has been contended by some criminologists that due to the incapability of a person to necessarily control the external factors influencing their actions, neurochemical intervention should be introduced as a solution in crime policy both for pre-emptive and present purposes. This paper evaluates and rejects the introduction of neurochemical intervention in crime policy through examination of the moral and ethical considerations.

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Corresponding author. Charlotte Kouo: kouochar@gmail.com

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COPYRIGHT: © The UK Law and Society Association, 2018