Labyrinths of crime medicalization

Abstract

This article examines some aspects of the processes of crime medicalization, especially the medicalization of criminal dangerousness in contemporary societies. It starts with the identification of elements that organized the historical trajectory of the conversion of crimes into objects of medical knowledge - particularly, crimes characterized by the use of physical violence, usually involving homicides, done by individuals who were partially or totally irresponsible from the point of view of criminal justice. The focus of the analysis is on psychiatric evaluation of criminal dangerousness as a part of biopolitical strategies of management of risks and uncertainties in modern societies. In this sense, we attributed an important role to the changes experienced by medical knowledge regarding the introduction of new assessment instruments of criminal dangerousness, characterized by the formalization and standardization of parameters for defining crime, criminals, and their dangerousness. These new technologies are analyzed in their connections with the contemporary trends of crime control, regarding ways of surveillance and risk management that are becoming increasingly more actuarial and medicalized. Finally, we discuss in what way and to what extent these new technologies lead to the depoliticization of crime, considering that new forms of evaluating criminal dangerousness promote the emergence of a medical discourse grounded on increasing accountability of the individual and on the relative unaccountability of society in producing risks and threats in this area.