Labirintos da medicalização do crime

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. Keywords: Medicalization; Psychiatry; Crime; Criminal Dangerousness. ResumoEste artigo examina alguns aspectos dos processos de medicalização do crime e, em particular, da periculosidade criminal nas sociedades contemporâneas. Parte-se da identificação de elementos que organizaram a trajetória histórica da conversão do crime em objeto do saber médico e, fundamentalmente, da criminalidade caracterizada pelo uso da violência física, geralmente de caráter homicida, praticada por indivíduos parcial ou totalmente inimputáveis do ponto de vista da justiça criminal. O foco da análise é constituído pela avaliação psiquiátrica da periculosidade criminal e sua inscrição em estratégias biopolíticas de administração de riscos e incertezas nas sociedades modernas. Nesse sentido, atribui-se um papel relevante às transformações experimentadas pelo saber médico no que concerne à recente introdução de novos instrumentos de avaliação da periculosidade criminal, caracterizados pela formalização e padronização dos parâmetros que definem o crime, o criminoso e sua periculosidade. Essas novas tecnologias são analisadas em suas conexões com algumas tendências contemporâneas do governo da criminalidade no que se refere aos modos de vigilância e de gestão de riscos, cada vez mais atuariais e medicalizadores. Por fim, discutese em que sentido e até que ponto essas novas tecnologias promovem a despolitização do crime, levando em consideração que as novas modalidades de ava...

Eugenesia y medicalización del crimen a inicios del siglo XX en Uruguay

“…In that sense, the medicalization of crime allows one to observe the progressive expansion of the spectrum of behaviors and social conditions entering the field of Psychiatry Mathes, 2013Mathes, , 2016. However, it is also possible to conclude that, at least in this area, any pretense of conceiving medicalization processes as a permanent, linear, and predetermined expansion of the universe of phenomena under the scope of psychiatric knowledge should be abandoned.…”

Apresentação - Medicalização do crime: indagações genealógicas

“…This monopolistic stance of medical knowledge stems, among other things, from the institutional trust usually placed by modern societies in science and technology, seen as strongholds in the management of fear, uncertainty, and threats Mathes, 2016). Crime tends to expose the fragility of the social fabric in managing behaviors that represent normative deviations and, at the same time, escape institutional schemes of social control.…”