Foucault News

Neurotechnologies of justice: Neuroscience beyond the courtroom
By Professor Nikolas Rose, Australian Neurolaw Database, On Soundcloud, March 2017

In this talk I will explore the actual and potential impacts of developments in neuroscience and neurotechnology in the criminal justice system beyond the courtroom. There has beenmuch discussion about the role of genetics and brain scanning in criminal trials and their impact on the legal fiction of free will, although evidencethat genetic or brain based defences succeed in exculpation is equivocal. In this talk, I will focus elsewhere, and explore the impact of claims to be able to ‘read the brain’ in neural lie detection and beyond, the potential uses of novel neurotechnologies for risk assessment, preemptive intervention, and their role in ‘law enforcement’ and ‘crowd control’, and some questions arising from machine learning and artificial intelligence. The challenges posed by the ‘dual use’ potential of some advances in neuroscience, where technologies intended for civilian purposes also have military and security uses, are particularly significant at a time when the boundaries between the criminal justice and the wider security system are increasingly blurred.