Citation

Witzel J, Walter M, Bogerts B, Northoff G. Behav. Sci. Law 2008; 26(1): 113-130.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bsl.798

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Forensic psychiatry is concerned with the relationship between psychiatric abnormalities and legal violations and crimes. Due to the lack of available biological criteria, evaluation and therapy in forensic psychiatry have so far been restricted to psychosocial and mental criteria of offenders' personalities. Recent advances in neurosciences allow a closer approach to the neural correlates of personality, moral judgments and decision-making. We propose to discuss the introduction of biological criteria in the field of forensic psychiatry and to establish rules as to what extent such biological criteria will be a better and more reliable choice in judging mentally ill criminals by using all available information that can be obtained by biological means.