How Neuroscience is Shaping Justice – A Conversation with Oliver Rollins

What happens when brain science enters the courtroom? And how do we make sense of new technologies that claim to detect, or even predict, criminal intent or mental state? In a recent conversation for NeuroSociety Stories, sociologist and MIT professor Oliver Rollins sheds light on how scientific discoveries are not only reshaping legal thinking, but also challenging how we define concepts like culpability, responsibility, and rehabilitation.

Drawing from years of research at the intersection of science, law, and social justice, Rollins offers a clear-eyed view of what’s at stake when we start explaining human behavior through brain imaging and other neurotechnologies that are still evolving.

“Many of the social factors that I find very important—these larger, systemic, structural social factors—are just not being taken up into the science right now,” Rollins says when asked about the challenges of incorporating neuroscience evidence in courtrooms.

Rollins’s interdisciplinary path—from biology to sociology, to Pan-African studies, to studying the legal and social implications of neuroscience—offers a distinctive lens on these complex questions. His work investigates not only how this scientific knowledge is interpreted by the courts but also how it travels through society—affecting policy, influencing legal norms, and even shifting public perception of fairness and punishment.

“We’re at an interesting point in society right now,” he says, “maybe a point where we can be rethinking the science that we want”.

Read the full article here.