Nearly 2 million people, most of them Black or Latino men, are locked up in the United States. In October 2021, the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, published a report arguing that correctional officials should examine the biology of imprisoned people — their hormones, their brains, and perhaps even their genes.
The report describes a future in which corrections sounds a bit more like practicing medicine than meting out punishment. Correctional programs would gather information about incarcerated peoples' cortisol levels, heart rate, genes, and brain chemistry, and more. They would then use that data to tailor interventions to specific individuals (say, offering one person mindfulness training, and another ADHD medication), and to help estimate the risk that someone will reoffend.
