Contents



Preface

The relationship between scientific knowledge, criminal law, and justice is a very complex issue. It is, in fact, a peculiar topos in which the distinction between "concept" and "evidence"—on which the consolidated scholastic differentiation between substantive and procedural criminal law is traditionally based—becomes fluid and blurred. This happens because the need to have recourse to experts with specialized knowledge, far from deriving from purely evidentiary needs, reflects the scientific complexity that characterizes—further upstream—the substantive categories that come into play. There are, therefore, categories that are already

Criminal sciences attempt to explain criminal phenomena, study the personality of the offenders and their environmental context, classify antisocial behaviors as crimes, and regulate the enforcement of the sentence. Criminal behavior analysis combines the study of psychology, motivations of deviant and violent behaviors, and the basics of the criminal justice system. Over the years, several models and theories have been developed, with the aim of explaining the recondite nature of the crime; from unifactorial to multifactorial, passing through deterministic "cause-effect" theories, up to the present day, where neuroscientific approaches are becoming increasingly popular. In this perspective, knowledge in the domain of forensic psychopathology—in relation to the assessment of imputability and social danger—becomes fundamental and requires consideration of the innovative

Since 2009, neuroscientific and behavioral genetics techniques have been used on four occasions in criminal trials in Italy. These are pilot sentences at the European level; in other countries of the old continent, in fact, criminal justice continues to be very cautious regarding the "endoprocedural" use of such scientific evidence. In other European countries, the criminal justice system continues to be very cautious regarding the end-of-court use of such "new" scientific evidence. In this sense, Italy seems to be closer to the United States, a country in which the use of neuroscience in the courtroom is by now quite long-standing. This attitude of openness of the Italian courts allows for a close confrontation with cutting-edge knowledge that, however, precisely because of its recent appearance on the stage of criminal justice, raises many questions about this knowledge's r entry and use in the process. More generally, the debate regarding the potential contribution of the most advanced medical and neuropsychological sciences to the administration of criminal justice represents only the last stage of the complicated relationship between the scientific universe and the criminal–criminological universe. This book provides the reader with a complete overview of the current state of the art in the criminological context (from legal, sociocultural, psychological, and medical points of view), paying particular attention to the most important evidence-based developments in

The first section is a brief miscellany of contributors addressing aspects of vulnerability that in multiple contexts emerge as key factors for analysis and monitoring. From fear to the expression of negative feelings to substance abuse, everything

characterized by a strong procedural–probative identity.

perspective of clinical neuropsychology.

this area.
