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Could Electrically Stimulating Criminals' Brains Prevent Crime? (newatlas.com)

future guy shares a report from New Atlas: A new study by a team of international researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Nanyang Technological University suggests that electrically stimulating the prefrontal cortex can reduce the desire to carry out violent antisocial acts by over 50 percent. The research, while undeniably compelling, raises a whole host of confronting ethical questions, not just over the feasibility of actually bringing this technology into our legal system, but whether we should?

The intriguing experiment took 81 healthy adults and split them into two groups. One group received transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for 20 minutes, while the other placebo group received just 30 seconds of current and then nothing for the remaining 19 minutes. Following the electrical stimulation all the participants were presented with two vignettes and asked to rate, from 0 to 10, how likely they would be to behave as the protagonist in the stories. One hypothetical scenario outlined a physical assault, while the other was about sexual assault. The results were fascinating, with participants receiving the tDCS reporting they would be between 47 and 70 percent less likely to carry out the violent acts compared to the blind placebo control.

3 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Of course, it's already been done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's called "electric chair". Pump enough watts into the brain and they don't commit crimes anymore. Works like a charm

  2. Absolutely by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1, Insightful


    You just need to have 100% accuracy in detecting that they are indeed criminals and sufficiently strong current.

    No more re-offending

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  3. this sounds soooo 19th Century by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1, Insightful

    As I recall, we tried the electroshock therapy thing a long time ago.

    It worked, if you defined "worked" to include "turned them into vegetables". Somehow, I doubt that that's what TFA had in mind though....

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"