Abstract

This review concerns articles on Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for crime prevention in offenders. Four databases were searched using “deep brain stimulation” and “criminal” or “offender” terms in “topics” or “abstract/title/keywords” parts. Articles with all dates, all types, all research designs, and sample age groups were included. The single exclusion criterion was being an animal study. PRISMA diagram left us with three philosophical/theoretical articles to be analyzed. Records obtained from Google Scholar search with prompt “deep brain stimulation in criminal offenders” led to somehow relevant articles which is presented as a table. Overall, this study shows that DBS employment as an intervention to prevent recidivism is controversial, thus the number of articles is few. The published work using the prompts above are on philosophical level, still discussing the legitimacy and expected unwavering function of the method.

Keywords:Deep Brain Stimulation; DBS; Crime prevention; Bioethics