Alcoholic Brain Damage: Implications for Sentencing Policy (With a Note on the Air-Encephalogram)

Abstract

Alcoholic brain damage is often overlooked as a factor in criminal behaviour. Air-encephalography is necessary to demonstrate it. In the case reported, visual evidence of brain damage during the trial of a drunken driver enabled the court to avoid an otherwise mandatory prison sentence and permit medical management instead. The importance of full neuro-psychiatric investigation of potentially brain-damaged offenders is stressed.