Legal-Justice Resources for Professionals

This guide is intended to help criminal defense attorneys understand common characteristics of brain injury, provides strategies for engaging an individual to participate in an appropriate defense, and provides questions that screen for possible brain injury.

Traditional criminal justice reform focuses on efforts to influence an individual’s thinking and attitudes – to help them understand the consequences of their behavior, to make restitution, to learn pro-social behaviors. These approaches may not work for individuals with TBI and this article provides information on how to make traditional methods more effective.

Some mechanisms of TBI, particularly violence related TBIs such as assault have been associated with poor outcomes compared to other TBIs, such as greater cognitive impairment, higher rates of alcohol use, poorer vocational outcomes, and poorer community reintegration.