Impulse control and criminal responsibility: lessons from neuroscience

Almost all of the world's legal systems recognize the "M'Naghten" exception to criminal responsibility: the inability to appreciate the wrongfulness of action. This exception rests on the assumption that punishment is morally justified only if the defendant was able to choose whether to do wrong. Jurists and jurisdictions differ, however, on whether to extend M'Naghten's logic to cases where the defendant understood the wrongfulness of an act but was incapable of resisting an impulse to commit it. In this article I ask whether contemporary neuroscience can help lawmakers to decide whether to adopt or retain this defense, known variously as the "irresistible impulse" defense or the "control" or "volitional" test for insanity. More specifically, I ask firstly, whether it is empirically true that a person can understand the wrongfulness of an act yet be powerless to refrain from committing it; and second (assuming an affirmative answer to the first), whether the law of criminal responsibility can practically accommodate this phenomenon? After canvassing the relevant neuroscientific literature, I conclude that the answer to the first question is "yes." After examining the varied treatment of the defense in the United States and other nations, I also give an affirmative answer to the second question, but only in limited circumstances. In short, the defense of irresistible impulse should be recognized, but only when it can be shown that the defendant experienced a total incapacity to control his or her conduct in the circumstances.     

Foundation for a temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior and criminal justice system involvement

Background

Temperament has been shown to be associated with behavior for millennia but has not been explicitly used in a theory of crime.

Methods

This state-of-the-art review incorporates theory and research from over 300 studies from developmental psychology, psychiatry, genetics, neuroscience, and criminology to introduce a temperament-based theory of antisocial conduct with criminal justice system implications.

Findings

Two temperamental constructs—effortful control and negative emotionality—are significantly predictive of self-regulation deficits and behavioral problems in infancy, in toddlerhood, in childhood, in adolescence, and across adulthood.

Conclusion

Unlike other theories that focus merely on explaining problem behaviors, our temperament approach also explains negative and aversive interactions with criminal justice system practitioners and associated maladjustment or noncompliance with the criminal justice system. A program of research is also offered to examine and test the theory.     

“正犯主犯化”:趋势、原因及启示

主犯与正犯分别处于我国和德日刑法共同犯罪人的核心地位,有必要明确二者的关系。在德日刑法史上,正犯的内涵经历了主观说、形式客观说和实质客观说的演变。随着重要作用说和犯罪事实支配理论成为学界通说,正犯的认定标准倒向了实质客观说。德日刑法中的正犯与我国刑法中主犯的界限日益模糊,呈现出"正犯主犯化"趋势。该趋势的形成与哲学思潮由自然(实证)主义向新康德主义的转变有关;在刑法领域,该思潮的转向主要通过把刑罚的合目的性引入到犯罪论的方法,以化解犯罪论与刑罚论的冲突和消弭"李斯特鸿沟"。"正犯主犯化"趋势对我国共同犯罪的研究具有重要启示:一方面,不能以德日刑法中的正犯、共犯概念代替主犯、从犯的规范用语;另一方面,不能割裂定罪与量刑的关系,引进所谓的"双层区分制"。对于外国刑法理论,应该在明确该理论产生的社会背景和发展动向的基础上,回归到中国的具体现实,结合具体问题分析我国刑法的优劣,再做出坚持还是借鉴的选择。     

Comparative criminal justice

Present state of electronic technology makes it possible for state authorities to control citizens' activity in every moment oh his/her life. On the other hand none of us want to be controlled this way and democratic rights shall guarantee our privacy to be preserved. Yet proactive police techniques can be useful in protecting us against those of our co – citizens who do not respect the legal order. The criminal investigation nowadays cannot exist without using proactive techniques – no matter if it takes place in Poland or USA. Thus the problem emerges how to choose when these techniques should be used and who should make this decision. The key-guarantee of respecting human rights in this case is external control of police activities. Proactive techniques are usually kept secret; therefore control seems to be impossible. Disclosure in criminal trial is the necessary condition for preventing abuses. Post fact revealing of all the actions taken by the Police is the best way to ensure legality. Both Polish and American legal systems try to balance the right to a fair trial and efficiency of an investigation. Surveillance, infiltration and police "provocation" are used in both countries but the legal solutions are quite different; especially considering checks and balances. It seems that polish legislator intentionally omitted most strict limitations as they cause problems for state authorities. Police lobby must have been much more effective than "human rights" lobby. Analyzing the level of protection of the citizen during criminal trial, it must be noticed that current American solutions are much more appropriate.     

PATTERNS IN CRIMINAL ACHIEVEMENT: WILSON AND ABRAHAMSE REVISITED

Even though intense cultural pressures for monetary success and an institutional social structure dominated by the economy are viewed in anomie theory as stimulating criminal motivations and accounting for criminal behavior with an instrumental character, patterns in criminal earnings have not attracted much scholarly and empirical attention. Wilson and Abrahamse's (1992) analysis of Rand's second inmate survey concluded that most inmates interviewed during the survey had overestimated their monthly criminal earnings in an effort to rationalize their poor criminal performances. In this paper, we conduct, using Rand's first survey, a reanalysis of inmates' self-reported monthly earnings. We conclude that meaningful patterns in criminal achievements easily emerge when allowed to do so. These patterns offer a telling story about differential criminal opportunities. Wilson and Abrahamse's emphasis on temporal inconsistency and response bias (boosting past benefits of crime) misrepresents the facts of that story and misjudges those persons agreeing to tell it. It is concluded that for a "criminal subculture" to have any persuasive or binding effect, its participants must be reasonably assured that their chances of making "crime pay" are not so remote as to become unattainable.     

"Too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity": Some therapeutic jurisprudence dilemmas in the representation of criminal defendants in incompetency and insanity cases

Little attention has been paid to the importance of the relationship between therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) and the role of criminal defense lawyers in insanity and incompetency-to-stand-trial (IST) cases. That inattention is especially noteworthy in light of the dismal track record of counsel providing services to defendants who are part of this cohort of incompetency-status-raisers and insanity-defense-pleaders. On one hand, this lack of attention is a surprise as TJ scholars have, in recent years, turned their attention to virtually every other aspect of the legal system. On the other hand, it is not a surprise, given the omnipresence of sanism, an irrational prejudice of the same quality and character of other irrational prejudices that cause (and are reflected in) prevailing social attitudes of racism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnic bigotry, that infects both our jurisprudence and our lawyering practices. Sanism is largely invisible and largely socially acceptable, and is based predominantly upon stereotype, myth, superstition, and deindividualization. It is sustained and perpetuated by our use of alleged "ordinary common sense" (OCS) and heuristic reasoning in an unconscious response to events both in everyday life and in the legal process. This paper examines the literature that seeks to apply TJ principles to the criminal law process in general, drawing mostly on the work of Professor David Wexler. It considers why the lack of attention that I have referred to already is surprising (given TJ's mandate and the fact that many TJ issues are inevitably raised in any insanity or IST case). The paper then considers why this lack of attention is not surprising, given the omnipresence of sanism. It will consider some of the actual counseling issues that might arise in these contexts, and offer some suggestions to lawyers representing clients in cases in which mental status issues may be raised. The paper concludes that we must rigorously apply therapeutic jurisprudence principles to these issues, so as to strip away sanist behavior, pretextual reasoning and teleological decision making from the criminal competency and responsibility processes, so as to enable us to confront the pretextual use of social science data in an open and meaningful way. This gambit would also allow us to address-in a more successful way than has ever yet been done-the problems raised by the omnipresence of ineffective counsel in cases involving defendants with mental disabilities.     

Reflections on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Prince</Emphasis>, Public Welfare Offenses, <Emphasis Type="Italic">American Cyanamid</Emphasis>, and the Wisdom of the Common Law

The fundamental requirement of Anglo-American criminal law is that crime must consist of the concurrence of a guilty mind—a mens rea—with a guilty act—an actus reus. And yet, the criminal law is shot through with discordant lumps of strict liability—crimes for which no mens rea is required. Ignoring the conventional normative objections to this aberration, I distinguish two different types of strict criminal liability: the type that arose at common law and the type associated with the public welfare offenses that are the product of twentieth and twenty-first century legislation. Using famous cases as exemplars, I analyze the two types of strict liability, and then examine the purposes served and incentives created by subjecting individuals to strict liability. I conclude that common law strict liability is rational in that it advances the purposes of the criminal law, while the public welfare offenses are at best pointless and at worst counterproductive. I suggest that in this respect the common law contains more wisdom than the results of the legislative process.     

新行为无价值论的中国展开

对于在犯罪论体系中处于重要地位的实质违法性论问题,有重视"恶果"的结果无价值论和重视"通过‘恶行’造成‘恶果’"的(二元的)行为无价值论的对立,但我国刑法学界对这两种理论的研究尚未充分展开。合理的违法性论应该考虑某种身体动静如何通过对行为规范的违反造成法益损害,以建立一种"新行为无价值论"。这个意义上的(二元)行为无价值论不会使处罚范围扩大化,不会侵犯人权;同时,仍然坚守客观违法性论立场,不会混淆违法和责任的界限。新行为无价值论能够将犯罪论和刑罚论有机地统一起来,肯定刑罚积极的一般预防目的,也与我国当前的社会发展状况、立法倾向、司法实务相契合。     

The prosecution of bias crime in the Netherlands and the problem of net-widening: fundamental limits to criminal liability

Crimes that are committed with bias motives are categorised as ??hate?? or bias crimes and are punished more severely than nonbias crimes. However, bias crime laws are often applied to offences where there is no clear evidence of a bias motive. Based on the results of 318 case studies into bias crime prosecutions in the Netherlands, this paper demonstrates that the causes of net-widening should be sought in the action-oriented nature of criminal law reasoning. Decision makers rely on objective behavioural indicators to infer motives. However, these are rarely reliable. We argue that this process results in a transformation of bias crime laws. They are no longer used to punish harmful motives. Rather, they are used to combat behaviour that is considered socially harmful on account of its perceived intolerant, racist or xenophobic message. This forces us to reconsider the justification behind trying to punish motive.     

共犯最小从属性说之再提倡——兼论帮助信息网络犯罪活动罪的性质

限制从属性说以正犯行为同时具有构成要件该当性与违法性作为共犯的成立前提,因而面临无法有效应对新型网络共同犯罪的危机.为解决这一危机,该说中有着眼于帮助对象必须是他人的"犯罪",主张帮助信息网络犯罪活动罪只是"帮助犯的量刑规则"的,也有以刑法分则条文的定罪机能为根据,提出"帮助犯正犯化"说的.但是,共犯的违法性不从属于正...     

刑事责任能力评定中“待分类的精神病性障碍”的诊断分析

目的探讨"待分类的精神病性障碍"诊断在刑事责任能力鉴定中的形成原因、判定原则及处理措施。方法分析比较四川西南司法鉴定中心2006年1月至2007年7月刑事责任能力鉴定案例中12例诊断为"待分类的精神病性障碍"的鉴定资料。结果形成此诊断的主要原因是鉴定资料不充分,描述的被鉴定人精神异常表现不具体、不典型(83.3%),或鉴定资料描述的精神异常与鉴定检查时发现的情况不一致。但是即使诊断为"待分类的精神病性障碍",仍可以从作案动机、有无逃逸等评定其刑事责任能力。12例诊断为"待分类的精神病性障碍"的被鉴定人9例(75%)判定为具有限制刑事责任能力,3例(25%)判定为无刑事责任能力。结论"待分类的精神病性障碍"是一种暂时性诊断,在一定程度上可以在司法精神病鉴定中使用,但应慎用。     

38例精神分裂症患者凶杀行为研究

目的　探讨精神分裂症患者的凶杀犯罪行为各个方面的特点。　方法　对 38例具有凶杀行为的精神分裂症患者 ,在心理学、生理学、社会学等各方面进行实例分析。　结果　这些患者在犯罪动机、行为特点、犯罪工具、被害人等诸多方面与正常人的凶杀犯罪有明显的差异。　结论　应加强对精神分裂症患者的诊治 ,普及精神卫生的知识 ,从而预防、控制犯罪。     

Corporate criminal liability and optimal firm behavior: internal monitoring versus managerial incentives

Legislation addressing corporate criminal liability has been the subject of worldwide debate ever since the financial scandals of the early 2000s. Under current regimes, firms must observe such compliance requirements as internal monitoring mechanisms, the purpose of which is inducing firms to detect the wrongful conduct of their agents. We develop an analytical framework for identifying when, and to what extent, firms may find it beneficial to adopt these regulatory devices. We conclude that more productive firms, those operating in sectors with more market power, and firms whose managers have more opportunities for criminal activity are more likely to prevent wrongful conduct—either through monitoring or the payment of efficiency wages. When the potential returns to illegal activities are high or the firm is large, internal monitoring is probably the optimal strategy of crime prevention; in contrast, smaller firms typically proceed by paying efficiency wages (or ignoring crime). This paper also analyzes the role of the State’s legal capacity as well as the effects of interactions between the structure of reputational losses and the firm’s market power.     

Why Criminal Law: A Question of Content?

I take it as obvious that attempts to justify the criminal law must be sensitive to matters of criminalization—to what conduct is proscribed or permitted. I discuss three additional matters that should be addressed in order to justify the criminal law. First, we must have a rough idea of what degree of deviation is tolerable between the set of criminal laws we ought to have and the set we really have. Second, we need information about how the criminal law at any given time and place is administered, since the law in action is bound to differ radically from the law on the books. Finally, we must have some basis for speculating what life would be like in the absence of a system of criminal justice—if the state ceased to impose punishments.

Duress and criminal responsibility

While the plea of duress is generally accepted as a defense against criminal prosecution, the reasons why it exonerates are subject to dispute and disagreement. Duress is not easily recognizable as either an excusing or justifying condition. Additionally, duress is generally not permitted as a defense against criminal homicide, though some American jurisdictions allow the defense in felony-murder cases. In this paper, I present an argument for how and why the presence of duress can defeat a finding of criminal responsibility. This is intended to establish the philosophical foundation for the legal acceptability of the duress defense, even though I conclude that the defense does not qualify as either an excuse or a justification. I also argue that the duress defense should be allowed in cases of homicide.     

Assessing criminal thought content: preliminary validation of the criminal thought content inventory (CTCI)

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a measure of criminal thought content entitled the Criminal Thought Content Inventory (CTCI). The 30-item CTCI generates a total score and scores for three individual dimensions or scales: Negative Attitudes toward Authority (NAA), Positive Attitudes toward Deviance (PAD), and Criminal Identity (CID). Students from two universities (N?=?335 and 456) completed the CTCI, along with measures of criminal thought process and delinquent behavior. According to the results of several analyses, the CTCI possesses adequate internal consistency, good test-retest reliability, and adequate concurrent validity. Confirmatory factor analyses performed on both samples offered support for the three-dimensional structure of the CTCI and an item response theory analysis indicated that over 80% of the items loaded at least moderately on a single latent trait. These results suggest that the CTCI possesses the requisite psychometric properties to warrant inclusion in studies investigating criminal thought content.     

论我国刑事审判监督程序之改革

The amendment of China’s Criminal Procedure Law has attracted the eyes of both the academic and judicial practice circles. In this research, the authors focus on a particular aspect of the criminal procedure law called the criminal procedure for trial supervision (also called as criminal retrial procedure) to conduct a comprehensive and systematic discussion from three aspects—the necessity of its existence and reform, the concept of its reconstruction and the detailed concepts of reform. The authors consider that the existence of the criminal retrial procedure is in line with the law of litigation, and necessary for the realization of judicial justice; there are obvious defects in China’s criminal retrial procedure in view of the realization of judicial justice and the improvement of efficiency, which calls for reform based on updated concepts. This article points out that the modern criminal retrial procedure must combine the concepts of the pursuit of justice, correction of erroneous judgments and res judicata and the rule of prohibition against double jeopardy. The authors also give several suggestions on the reform of China’s criminal retrial procedure.     

The normative concept of guilt in criminal law between freedom of will and neurobiological determinism

To make criminal conduct liable to punishment, criminal responsibility, defined as individual blameworthiness in terms of social ethics, is required as point of reference--both to create and limit the state's right to punish the offender. Neurobiological findings and more recent investigations in brain research have given rise to serious doubts regarding this "conditio sine qua non" of the state's power monopoly. As a result of preceding unconscious decisions, so the argument goes, Man is not free in his will, and the normative principle of culpability would need to be relinquished in favour of a "law of measures" detached from guilt. A detailed analysis of the underlying experimental setups, in particular the investigations by Benjamin Libet involving the measurement of the readiness potential, has shown, however, that the results of the test methods do not justify the demand for a profound change up to the point of a total revision of criminal law, and that they cannot invalidate the concept of freedom of will apostrophised on principle. The empirical data obtained fail to demonstrate if and why decisions of the will should not be free, the more so as the nomothetic method used ignores completely the idiographic understanding and interpretation of the always context-related and socio-structurally (pre)-moulded personality of the offender. Performed in a laboratory setting as individual actions with a comparatively simple structure and unrelated to a concrete situation, they can by no means be translated to the (more) complex situation under which an offence is committed including the decision-making processes determined by psychodynamic, motivational and intentional aspects as well as highly specific reciprocal interactions within the offender-victim constellation. Even if these experiments had shown the determined nature of human decisions, they would not necessarily have to bring about a conceptual change of paradigms of the normative concept of guilt, because as a result of self-attribution, the intra- and inter-subjective experience of the freedom of will renders the mere "illusion of freedom" sufficient to assign to an individual the appropriate sense of responsibility, which is also accepted by him. The alternative of a law of measures independent of guilt and culpability must be rejected because it is incapable of instituting sufficient protection, both in qualitative and quantitative terms, against prognostically diffuse and utilitarian hypertrophied prophylactic efforts on the part of the state up to the point of a revolutionised anthropological design, as shown quite clearly by the repressive and restrictive tendencies apparent in criminal policy since 11 September 2001. Consequently, the classic principle of guilt as one of the humanitarian foundations of punishment imposed by the state needs to be protected and upheld in the face of rash and inadequately considered law amendment endeavours. With its principles having slowly grown over the ages under democratic consent, criminal law is capable of immunising itself against uncritically generalised restructuring attempts based on inductive false conclusions and the confusion of coincidence, correlation and causality, let alone against the neurobiological "occupation tendencies" of normative premises. Regardless of their undeniable fascination, future brain research activities and the respective findings in the neurobiology of thinking, decision-making and acting as an indispensable empirical and epistemological starting point must always be reviewed in terms of their factual and normative implementation powers in favour of or against the human freedom of will.     

Punishment and Reform

The reform of offenders is often said to be one of the morally legitimate aims of punishment. After briefly surveying the history of reformist thinking I examine the ‘quasi-reform’ theories, as I call them, of H. Morris, J. Hampton and A. Duff. I explain how they conceive of reform, and what role they take it to have in the criminal justice system. I then focus critically on one feature of their conception of reform, namely, the claim that a reformed offender will obey the relevant laws for moral reasons. I argue on consequentialist grounds that this requirement is objectionable. Consequentialism has always accepted reform as one legitimate goal of punishment, but it will not accept the narrowly moral conception of it that we find in the quasi-reform theorists. I situate my criticism within criminal law theory, but I also consider the claim in moral theory that acting from moral motives has intrinsic value.     

Marxism and the criminal question

The question considered is whether it is possible to trace a theoretical strategy for a criminal policy on the basis of Marx's work. The answer offered is that Marxian political and economic analysis does not supply any general theory of criminality and that any attempt to formulate such a theory (as in Lenin, Paukanis or Gramsci) necessarily leads to authoritarian and regressive conceptions of crime and punishment. Nevertheless the authors maintain that it is possible to trace three theoretical suggestions within Marxian thought which allow of a fruitful approach to the criminal question. The first suggestion relates to the economic roots of many aspects of modern criminality; the second regards the Christian and bourgeois superstition of moral liberty and individual culpability; the third suggestion deals with the lack of a guaranteed social space as the prime root of crime. These theoretical suggestions permit clarification of the social character of penal responsibility and this character points to the need for the socialization (but not deregulation) of criminal treatment.This essay grew out of a reply to a questionnaire drawn up by La questione criminale, an Italian review which tries to approach the criminal question from a Marxist standpoint.