PRISON RESEARCH: A BIOETHICS OR AN ETHICS ISSUE?/Investigacion en prisión: ¿una cuestion de bioetica o de etica?/Investigacao em contexto prisional: Um questao de bioetica ou de etica?

The hypothesis of reducing aggressiveness through transcranial direct current stimulation was recently tested on a cohort of inmates in Spain. The experiment, including 1.5 mA electric shocks, was an external research initiative that received the initial acquiescence of the carcerai system. An alarm was raised at the time the research was published, encouraging the directorate of prisons to stop the ongoing replication of the experiment. Nevertheless, no (bio)ethics committee, in the universities or among bioethics experts, has questioned the research. In this think piece, we aim to again discuss some ethical approaches to these clinical interventions on crime. After its positivistic period, the field of criminology has been questioning the simple psychobiological approach to crime because of the reductionistic view of this phenomenon and its harmful consequences. Thus, we address academic experimentation under prison governance and the "re" roles of prisons. We argue that the minor disadvantages of such research, if performed with consent, could be positive if the research can minimize the harmfulness of prison itself; thus, penitentiary treatment and science should go together. Prison administrations, in addition to their duty to protect the individuals under their control from ethically biased research, must promote reintegration. We conclude that human rights are over criminal policy and science and that ethics are over narrower bioethics. Keywords: prison research, bioethics, ethics, prison governance, transcranial stimulation La hipotesis de la reduccion de la agresividad por medio de estimulaciones transcraneales ha sido recientemente testada sobre encarcelados en Espana. El experimento, que incluyo descargas electricas de 1.5 mA, fue una iniciativa de investigadores externos que encontro la aquiescencia inicial del sistema carcelario. La alarma surgio en el momento en que se publico la investigacion, alentando a la direccion de las prisiones a detener la replicacion del experimento. Sin embargo, hasta entonces, ningun comite encontro ningun inconveniente, ni en las universidades ni entre expertos en bioetica. En este articulo de reflexion pretendemos argumentar algunos enfoques eticos de estas intervenciones clinicas sobre la delincuencia. De nuevo, ya que la criminologia, despues de su periodo positivista, ha venido cuestionado el mero enfoque psicobiologico de la delincuencia. Asi, abordamos el experimento academico dentro de la gobernanza penite