Neurodevelopmental Disorders Amongst Young People Who Offend: Criminality Through Neuroimpairment And Criminalisation Through Neurodisability

• In Event: Biosocial Criminology: Neuropsychology, Self-Control, and Antisocial Behavior

Abstract

The disproportionately high prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders amongst young people in the custodial estate suggests a need for criminological research intended to understand and ultimately impact upon their pathways into serious and persistent offending. Advances in biological and neurosciences offer improved understandings of the ontogenic impact of neurodevelopmental impairment. In turn, biosocial criminology offers the potential to utilise these advances, so as to better explain how such impairment might increase propensity towards antisocial behaviour and criminality. This includes through examination of related biological criminogenic risk factors, and their interaction with social and environmental factors. However, any theoretical framework intended to explain this disproportionate prevalence within the custodial estate must also focus attention on social processes that serve to disable young people with neurodevelopmental impairment and therefore heighten risk of criminalization. This includes consideration to the criminal justice system itself, addressing the processes and norms that disadvantage and discriminate against this vulnerable population, and supporting responsive intervention appropriate to specific needs and learning styles. A criminological framework must therefore incorporate an understanding of both impairment and disability, if the related processes of criminality and criminalisation amongst those with neurodevelopmental difficulties are to be understood and addressed.

Author

• Nathan Hughes, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne / University of Birmingham, UK