ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how developing knowledge of cognitive neuroscience and its associated technologies may impact upon the criminal justice system. It examines the claims that modern understandings of how the brain drives behaviour, based on new insights from cognitive neuroscience and neurobiology, challenges certain tenets of the criminal law and the criminal justice system. The chapter examines the areas of particular significance to future developments in the criminal legal system. It assesses how neurotechnologies may be used more generally by the criminal justice system in the future. The chapter considers what the whole ramifications of this might be; it is not suggested that the societal view that people are responsible for their actions be abandoned. It provides an assertion that 'the brains of criminals have captured the public's imagination for centuries'. The MacArthur Foundation has greatly supported the researching of the interface between neuroscience and law.
