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This book is out of print and no longer available for purchase. As scientists come closer to identifying genetic markers for human behavior, society is challenged to determine how reliable these findings might be and whether they can be used to solve real-life problems. If there are specific genes that predispose people to violence, how should the courts use this genetic information? Does it matter, in prosecution and sentencing, whether a genetic predisposition to criminality exists? How should we weigh this information against environmental influences such as poverty or physical abuse? This book examines these questions by considering the perspectives of leaders in science, medicine, law, and philosophy, perspectives that don't neatly intersect. Essential reading for social scientists and criminal lawyers, Genetics and Criminality offers a thought-provoking analysis of the delicate balance between knowledge and justice. Book Review Genetics and Criminality succeeds in bringing together an interdisciplinary group of experts in philosophy, medicine, psychiatry, and law to review the implications of the new genetic data from the courtroom and society…The philosophical discussion of free will and determinism in this book is lively because the judicial matters to be decided—matters involving insanity, long jail sentences, and the death penalty, for example—are of paramount importance…The scientific authors emphasize the gaps in our knowledge of the relation between genotype and phenotype and not that the cause of psychiatric illness is multifactorial and includes undefined environmental components. The legal authors pull together philosophical and medical information…These legal analyses are easy to comprehend. This book is part of the Law and Public Policy: Psychology and the Social Sciences Series. |
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