News and Commentary Archive

Explore recent scientific discoveries and news as well as CLBB events, commentary, and press.

Mission

The Center for Law, Brain & Behavior puts the most accurate and actionable neuroscience in the hands of judges, lawyers, policymakers and journalists—people who shape the standards and practices of our legal system and affect its impact on people’s lives. We work to make the legal system more effective and more just for all those affected by the law.

Video: Steven Pinker: “The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century”

On Thursday, November 20, 2014, at the Bornstein Amphitheater at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, CLBB and the Boston Society for Neurology and Psychiatry co-sponsored a talk by Steven Pinker, renowned Harvard cognitive psychologist, linguist, and popular author, to discuss his most recent book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. Video of the event is included below in its entirety and at our Vimeo page. Continue reading »

Watch: “Free Will: What Can Physiology Explain?”

While we may believe that we choose and direct our movements consciously, the physiology of human motor control provides compelling evidence that this sense of conscious decision – free will – is a perception only.

On Thursday, October 2, 2014, at the Bornstein Amphitheater at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, CLBB and the Boston Society for Neurology and Psychiatry co-sponsored an event exploring how an understanding of human motor control can contribute to the question of free will. Video of the event is included below in its entirety and at our Vimeo page. Continue reading »

Dispatch: “Neuro-interventions and the Law” Conference

Dr. Ekaterina Pivovarova

Dr. Ekaterina Pivovarova

On September 12-14, 2014, the Atlanta Neuroethics Consortium was held at Georgia State University. The topic, Neuro-Interventions and the Law: Regulating Human Mental Capacity, brought together leading scholars on philosophy, neuroscience, law, cognitive and clinical psychology, psychiatry, and bioethics. The participants included Judge Andre Davis, Nita Farahany, Stephen Morse, Francis Shen, Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Nicole Vincent, and Paul Root Wolpe. The conference panels, talks, and keynotes addressed pressing issues about managing and appropriately utilizing novel neuroscientific technologies as they relate to legal issues. Continue reading »

Transforming Justice with Neuroscience: Explore the CLBB NeuroLaw Library

In a recent session of the Law & Neuroscience Works in Progress Workshop, established and directed by CLBB Affiliated Faculty Francis Shen, JD, PhD, CLBB NeuroLaw Library Director Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, CLBB Senior Research Associate and Research Librarian Kathryn Lamp, PhD, and CLBB Research Assistant Lily Reed, MA, provided an in-depth exploration of the CLBB NeuroLaw Library.

Watch the full workshop recording here.

Since its launch in June 2024, the Center’s NeuroLaw Library has offered free access to a range of AI-powered digital resources, including case law, scientific articles, policy papers, expert affidavits, amicus briefs, sample motions, and sample affidavits:

A great place to start is the Resource Library, a searchable database of case law, scientific articles, and amicus briefs involving juvenile justice. This digital library is already one of a kind, but its comprehension slider allows users to review these resources at multiple reading levels, thereby increasing accessibility. 

The Attorney Toolkit provides a snapshot of the science and the law on juvenile offenders, helping defense attorneys who represent juvenile and early adult clients quickly understand how the science of adolescent brain development is being applied to the law regarding juvenile and young adult offenders. 

The Educational Courses provide brief modules on adolescence in the legal system, focusing on topics like criminal trajectories of juvenile offenders, working with forensic experts, the science of trauma, the science of substance use, and the effects of incarceration on children and late adolescents. 

For those who would like guidance on how this collection of resources could be most helpful to them, we also offer librarian assistance via phone (select hours) and email (7 days a week) through our Ask a Librarian page.  

A Neuroscience Library Helps Level the Legal Playing Field

In the second digital edition of Mindscapes: Inside Mass General Psychiatry, Mass General Giving highlighted the work of the CLBB NeuroLaw Library and its growing impact across the legal and policy landscape.

By Kelsey Abbruzzese, October 14, 2024

Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB) operates at the intersection of law and medicine, working to ensure that the most accurate and actionable neuroscience is present in courtrooms across the globe. Now, thanks to a generous gift from The Tow Foundation and with backing from other supporters, CLBB has launched its latest resource in those efforts: the NeuroLaw Library, a first-of-its kind database that collects all the expert research from CLBB’s team of legal and medical experts. This free, open access resource contains journal articles, amicus briefs and affidavits focused on neuroscience, along with educational videos, a neurolaw dictionary and toolkits for attorneys and incarcerated persons.

“In the legal field, better science leads to better outcomes,” says Judith G. Edersheim, JD, MD, who with Bruce H. Price, MD, is co-founder and director of the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior. “With the NeuroLaw Library, we’re leveling the playing field when it comes to informing the justice system about neuroscience.”

“A lot of people don’t have access to neuroscience resources that can help their case,” adds Library Director Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD. “The idea behind the NeuroLaw Library is that they can get in and get what they need.”

Since its founding in 2008, CLBB has become a leader in providing neuroscience research to inform juvenile and young adult justice, aging and elder fraud prevention, criminal sentencing and memory in eyewitness testimony. CLBB’s small but mighty team has educated legislators and judges about brain science, written legal briefs on the latest findings and testified as expert witnesses. But, as Dr. Edersheim puts it, the team couldn’t be everywhere at once, so they wanted a way to share this knowledge with as many people as possible.

“Think about the neuroscience of substance use disorders,” Dr. Edersheim says. “The law had thought of these as character flaws, and those misconceptions led to vicious cycles of incarceration and relapse. But the brain science of addiction is incredibly useful to drive better outcomes. All of that knowledge is actionable, and it’s leading people to rethink the conditions of parole and expansions of treatments within correctional facilities. For us, the question was, how do we get it to more people?”

Enter the NeuroLaw Library. With this resource, people across the judicial spectrum—defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, probation and parole officers, advocates, incarcerated persons and their families—can search for information about how the brain works and what that means for the justice system. For example, a user can type in “solitary confinement” or “substance use” and find a treasure trove of legal knowledge in those matters.

“The CLBB NeuroLaw Library aligns powerfully with our core mission to make ‘accurate and actionable’ neuroscience broadly accessible to inform and reform law and public policy,” says CLBB Executive Director Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD. “Each module added over time will bring neuroscience and related behavioral sciences to critical areas of law and policy with impacts across the lifespan, from child well-being to elder protection.”

The first module of the NeuroLaw Library, titled Juvenile and Emerging Adult Justice, is one of five content modules planned, with a staggered release over the next two years. This first module reflects the growing impact of neuroscience research on sentencing reform and sentence mitigation in felony cases involving crimes committed by youth and young adults. Research in adolescent neuroscience shows that most criminal behavior desists after age 19, but sending juvenile offenders to prison increases their risk of continued offenses.

“What we’ve learned about adolescent and young adult brains is that they have an underdeveloped frontal lobe and a hyperdeveloped amygdala, which is like having a Ferrari engine with Smartcar brakes,” Dr. Tabashneck says. “They’re really good at go, but really bad at stop, which translates to making poor decisions in a highly emotional context. Educating judges, policymakers and attorneys on these dynamics is incredibly helpful, because they’re making decisions about community safety and sentencing.”

Future modules—made possible by the generosity of The Tow Foundation, the late Dr. Michael A. Jenike through the David Judah Fund, and Steve and Joan Belkin—will share CLBB’s expertise in substance use, trauma, elder abuse and child protection. The database will also leverage artificial intelligence to adapt complex materials to five different reading levels, starting at the sixth grade. This feature is designed to meet the needs of justice-involved persons restricted in the amount of time they can spend in the prison library or who may have limited educational backgrounds.

Feedback on the library has been overwhelmingly positive, with interest from the Innocence Project, the Sentencing Project, the National Center for Juvenile Justice and the Juvenile Law Center. CLBB is poised to distribute the NeuroLaw Library to every adult correctional institution in Maine, with plans for juvenile centers, and is in talks with technology providers to expand to other institutions throughout the country.

“The impact of the NeuroLaw Library is already being felt across the legal and policy landscape – from incarcerated persons writing their own appeals, to defense attorneys and prosecutors, judicial educators, and legislative staffers,” Dr. Kinscherff says. “Eliminating barriers to accessing reliable science and skillfully developed litigation materials and briefs is the first essential step toward democratizing access to science so it can be applied in legal and policy decision-making.”

Find the full Mindscapes story here.

Remembering CLBB Advisory Board Member Joan Heilig Kahn

In July, the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior lost founding Advisory Board member, Joan Heilig Kahn, after a brief illness. Joan was devoted to CLBB and its mission, offering her wisdom, her energy, and her insight, as well as her home and her vast network of friends and admirers to help us create a more equitable and enlightened justice system. Joan was central to building CLBB and pursuing excellence in our endeavors with her leadership, her philanthropy, and her extraordinary grace. We will miss her terribly, but will carry her spirit with us as we pursue better decisions aligned with neuroscience to create better outcomes aligned with justice. 

Sentencing Children: Bridging Neuroscience, Justice, and Reform

October 9, 2024, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM EST

Watch the recording of this event here.


CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center hosted a thought-provoking discussion on the mass incarceration of children, adolescent neuroscience, and restorative justice. Our distinguished panelists—a judge, a psychologist, and a lawyer rooted in restorative justice—shared their expertise on how we can align justice systems with science and pave the way for more humane and effective pathways forward.

Panelists:

Moderator: Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow of Law and Applied Neuroscience, Center for Law Brain and Behavior at Harvard Medical School and Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School; Licensed Psychologist and Attorney; and Director, CLBB Neurolaw Library

Honorable Nancy Gertner, JD, Senior Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; Retired Federal Judge; Author; and Managing Director, Center for Law, Brain and Behavior, Mass General Hospital

Melissa Wood Bartholomew, JD, MDiv, MSW, PhD, Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and Lecturer on Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Harvard Divinity School; and racial justice and healing practitioner

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD, Executive Director, Center for Law, Brain & Behavior; Associate Managing Director, Juvenile and Young Adult Justice Project, Massachusetts General Hospital; and Former Petrie-Flom Senior Fellow

Mass. forward-thinking on raising age for juvenile offenders

By Dr. Robert Kinscherff, July 19, 2024, 2:30 a.m.

Young adults similar to adolescents, especially in emotionally charged situations

Thank you to Adrian Walker for his column on raising the age for juvenile offenders. I commend Senate President Karen Spilka and Senator Brendan Crighton for their roles in passing an amendment allowing 18-year-olds to be tried as juveniles for most offenses. This legislative decision is aligned with science and forward-thinking people familiar with the issues.

In January, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Mattis, banning life without possibility of parole for any crimes committed by individuals ages 18 to 20. The court’s decision and the state’s proposed “Raise the Age” legislation are consistent with the research summarized in a “White Paper on the Science of Late Adolescence, A Guide for Judges, Attorneys, and Policy Makers,” authored by the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital. This report, which focused on brain development through late adolescence, demonstrates that adolescents and young adults are similar — especially in emotionally charged situations — in acting impulsively, taking risks, seeking immediate rewards, and yielding to peer influence.

Clearly, laws should not be based on outdated information. Hopefully, the Legislature will continue to follow the science in considering criminal justice policy.

Read Dr. Robert Kinscherff’s full Letter to the Editor here.