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Dr. Gregg D. Caruso, SUNY Corning Community College Professor of Philosophy, is working on a new book about neurolaw. The 11th book of his career will explore the relationship between neuroscience and criminal law, and how developments in neuroscience can impact criminal law.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down and ask Dr. Caruso questions regarding his new book and research process.

 

Q: What is “neurolaw”? And can you explain what the new book will be about?

A: Neurolaw is an area of interdisciplinary research on the meaning and implications of neuroscience for the law and legal practices. The new book will focus on three different domains of investigation: assessment, intervention, and revision. The first concerns brain-based assessments, which may be used for predicting future violence, mind reading, judging legal insanity, and the like. The second concerns potential treatments and other interventions that aim at rehabilitation and/or the prevention of crime. The third investigates the ways that neuroscience may impact the law by changing or revising commonsense views about human nature and the causes of human action.

 

Q: What inspired you to write about the relationship between Criminal Justice and Neuroscience?

A: I've been working on the issue of free will for many years. Most of my books are about free will and moral responsibility in some way or another. As I've developed my views on free will, people have asked me what the implications are for criminal justice, for things like punishment, blame, and moral responsibility. I've developed a novel approach to criminal behavior that rejects retributivism and the notion of just deserts—the belief that wrongdoers justly deserve to be punished in proportion to their wrongdoing since they acted freely. Instead, my account is grounded in a public health approach to criminal behavior—one that prioritizes prevention and social justice. It’s aim it to prevent criminal behavior before it occurs. It's a more holistic approach. It's less retributive and blame-based and focuses instead on the social factors that drive criminal behavior, like poverty, abuse, domestic violence, housing insecurity, education, mental illness, nutrition, and environmental health.

The basic idea is that crime is more a byproduct of circumstances than people. Hence, if you want to prevent crime, the best way to do it is to adopt policies that target the social determinants of criminal behavior. Of course, we still need to deal with criminals after they've committed violent crimes, so my account also provides a justification for incapacitating the seriously dangerous.

My approach is called the public health quarantine model. Consider, for instance, the justification for quarantine. If I have Ebola, an infectious disease, everyone would agree it's legitimate for the state to restrict my liberty by quarantining me to protect others. The justification for quarantine, in this case, is the right of self-defense. Note, though, that quarantine is not a punishment since punishment usually requires more than just a limit on one’s freedom—it also includes intentional harsh treatment and some form of condemnation. I argue that we can justify incapacitating seriously dangerous criminals just like we can justify quarantining people with communicable diseases, and that such restrictions on liberty are grounded in the right of self-defense and protection of society.

Moreover, I argue that we should shift the focus away from the myopic obsession with punishment, retribution, and punitive approaches to crime, and toward rehabilitation, reintegration, and addressing the social causes of crime. On such an approach, the prison conditions would have to be drastically altered so that the institutions focus on rehabilitation and reintegration, not punishment. Furthermore, on my model individuals would not lose their right to vote and would retain all other fundamental rights. Just like we can limit the liberty of the Ebola patient by quarantining them to protect public health and safety, but we cannot strip them of their voting rights, disenfranchise them, or bar them from public housing, I contend the same should be true for those we incapacitate within the system of criminal justice. The argument, then, is that we need to abandon retributivism and reconsider our entire approach to criminal behavior—and this will require drastic reform of the criminal justice system.

 

Q: Could you please elaborate on the need for criminal justice reform?

A: We're suffering from a crisis of mass incarceration. It costs taxpayers a ton of money. The United States makes up only 4.5% of the world's population, but houses 25% of the world's prisoners. It's the highest rate of incarceration known to civilization. No other society has ever imprisoned that many members of its community. We incarcerate 700 people for every 100,000. If you compare that to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, they detained roughly 60 people for every 100,000. That means we are imprisoning more than ten times as many people as other nations. There is no doubt, then, that there is a mass incarceration crisis in the United States. In fact, one out of every 31 Americans is currently somewhere within the criminal justice system, whether that be parole, probation, jail, or prison. That is a vast net, and part of it is the over-criminalization of certain behaviors and over-policing of specific communities. Social issues like racism factor in, as does police brutality and other systemic inequalities in society. We need criminal justice reform and we need it now.

 

Q: How does your research tie into your teaching, and what do you hope students gain from taking philosophy?

A: Philosophy aims to give students the critical skills necessary to analyze information and live critically-reflective lives. Nowadays, people are inundated with information—some of it good, some of it bad. We live in the age of misleading social media stories, spin, “false news,” and “alternative facts.” Philosophy teaches us how to think for ourselves, analyze arguments, and apply appropriate standards of evidence. It teaches us how to be individuals in the midst and noise of the masses. I strongly believe that the only way a participatory democracy like our own can function properly, is if we provide students with the skills necessary to be informed thinkers and critically process information. Philosophy teaches these skills. It teaches students how to justify their beliefs, analyze and construct arguments, and live in a pluralistic society where people have different attitudes and beliefs. As such, it benefits students directly but it also strengthens our democracy and our society.

 

Q: Where can people find your book?

A: Please can find them on my website (www.greggcaruso.com), Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all the major book outlets.