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Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7, 311–318 (1 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/nrn1887

Neuroscience and legal determination of criminal responsibility

Nigel Eastman & Colin Campbell

Neuroscience is increasingly identifying associations between biology and violence that appear to offer courts evidence relevant to criminal responsibility. In addition, in a policy era of 'zero tolerance of risk', evidence of biological abnormality in some of those who are violent, or biological markers of violence, may be seized on as a possible basis for preventive detention in the interest of public safety. However, there is a mismatch between questions that the courts and society wish answered and those that neuroscience is capable of answering. This poses a risk to the proper exercise of justice and to civil liberties.