The Return of Lombroso? Ethical Aspects of (Visions of) Preventive Forensic Screening

Munthe, Christian; Radovic, Susanna

In the next section, the main approaches of the new Lombrosian vision are described and discussed in more detail. We note some uncertainties both with regard to scientific hypotheses assumed and to the effectiveness of proposed preventive strategies. However, faith in such assumptions and actions may nevertheless prevail, adding further complexity to ethical analysis and motivating more in-depth inquiry also in cases of what may on the surface look like less realistic ideas. On this basis, we describe 27 strategy types for how the new Lombrosian vision may take concrete form and, in section 3, analyse these from the perspective of general ethical concerns regarding screening and the intersection of medicine and criminal law policy. We hereby identify an underlying nest of general ethical issues, further discussed in section 4. This concerns the balancing of risks of negative side effects-well known from the bioethical discussion of screening programmesagainst possible benefits described mostly in nonhealth terms and linking to the institutional values of criminal law. The result is summed up in section 5, noting that our analysis, rather than delivering a proposed solution, results in a theoretical framework for further, more specific ethical analysis of the intersection of criminal and public health policy, in particular, the idea of medical population screening programmes for the purpose of preventing violent crime.