Expert Insights Series #1: A Q&A with Dr. Kirk Heilbrun on Forensic Psychology

Peddie Psychology & Sociology Club | Special Feature reported by Elaine Liu, February 2025

In the last few days, club leaders had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, a leading expert in forensic psychology and professor at Drexel University, to discuss risk assessment, juvenile justice, and the evolving role of psychology in the legal system. With a career spanning clinical practice, academia, and forensic assessment, Dr. Heilbrun has shaped the field through both research and real-world application. He served as department head at Drexel from 1999–2012 and again from 2014–2016, after working as a forensic psychologist in psychiatric hospitals. Board-certified in clinical and forensic psychology, he is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in six divisions.

At Drexel, Dr. Heilbrun directs a forensic assessment clinic, providing psychological evaluations for courts on cases involving juvenile sentencing, mental competency, and risk assessment. He also leads the Reentry Project, which offers pro bono assessment and treatment to individuals transitioning from federal prison, mental health court programs, and those exonerated after wrongful convictions. His work continues to shape the intersection of psychology, law, and rehabilitation.

Below are his responses to our questions, offering invaluable insights for students interested in psychology and law.

Evidence-Based Risk Assessment vs. Courtroom Practice

Q: Where do you see the biggest gaps between evidence-based risk assessment practices and what actually happens in courtrooms? How can researchers and students help close those gaps?

Dr. Heilbrun: The current practice of legal decision-making in the area of risk assessment has the benefit of the availability of a variety of good specialized risk assessment measures that began to appear in the early 1990s. Since that time, there is good evidence that a number of these measures are good to very good in identifying risk factors and appraising the level of risk presented by an individual. (Interestingly, there is not one of these measures that has distinguished itself as substantially better than others; good measures have mean AUC values in the .70s.) However, in order to use the information available from these measures, they must be employed by experts who have integrated them into a risk appraisal, put into a report, interpreted without bias, and accepted by the legal decision-maker. Each of these has the potential to reduce (or completely eliminate) the influence of such risk measures. A final barrier I see is the faux commonsense notion that seriousness of an index offense is a good indicator of risk. For example, a judge presiding over a hearing involving a defendant charged with homicide might be dubious (or entirely disbelieving) when informed that such an individual might actually be low risk for future violence, while an individual charged with a minor offense might be high risk. I try to explain it this way. A given offense, if accurately charged, involves a very small slice of a person’s life. A good risk assessment measure, properly used, incorporates information about very large samples of that person’s life. It should not be surprising that the latter will provide a more stable and accurate appraisal of future risk.

Researchers have been doing a good job of providing the necessary tools and foundational research to enable the practice of empirically-supported risk assessment. It is now up to practitioners to be aware of and use these tools, and to judges to be receptive to information provided about them.

AI & Neuroimaging: The Future of Risk Evaluation?

Q: With advancements like AI and neuroimaging, do you see potential breakthroughs (or overlooked dangers) in evaluating violence risk?

Dr. Heilbrun: Previously, I alluded to current risk assessment measures as good but not great in their accuracy. I have for some time believed that any meaningful improvement in accuracy will come when we have better tools for appraisal (e.g., neuroimaging) and better means of combining and conveying information (e.g., AI).  There will always be risks of misusing these new tools. Such risks will need to be managed as well use them. But I think our potential for meaningful advances, comparable to those occurring in the early 1990s when researchers started using empirically-supported risk factors rather than clinical symptoms or theoretically plausible (but unsupported) criteria, will come with tools such as AI and neuroimaging when we’ve figured out how to apply them to risk assessment.

Juvenile Justice: Key Research Questions

Q: What are some emerging research trends in juvenile justice and developmentally informed sentencing guidelines?

Dr. Heilbrun: Three key questions stand out:

1. How can we rehabilitate justice-involved adolescents more effectively within their communities?

2. What role does psychosocial maturity (rather than cognitive maturity) play in offending risk, and can it be changed?

3. How can young offenders who require residential placement receive consistent, developmentally appropriate treatment, especially in the adult correctional system?

   
   

Ethical Dilemmas in Forensic Evaluations

Q: Could you discuss an ethical dilemma you’ve faced in designing or implementing diversion programs?

Dr. Heilbrun: Since I don’t design or implement diversion programs, I’ll answer this from the standpoint of what I often do (conduct evaluations on the question of whether an adolescent charged in the adult system with a serious offense should be “transferred back” or decertified to the juvenile system). The challenge comes when evaluating a defendant who has allegedly done something that is particularly harmful. The resolution almost always involves looking at this conduct in the larger context of that individual’s life. I have never encountered an individual who does not have some redeeming qualities, who has not experienced adversity over which they had no control, and for whom it is entirely obvious that we should give up on them. This is reinforced by the empirical reality that serious juvenile offenders desist from offending in their early 20s at the rate of 70-80% (see the literature on desistance vs. lifecourse persistence), and that currently we can’t accurately identify who will be in the desisting group and who will be in the persisting group if we look at them in their teens (when my evaluations are conducted) as opposed to around age 30 (when their behavior tells us where they fall). If you look at people’s lives in a comprehensive way, you might still conclude that there’s not much evidence that they should be decertified into the juvenile system, where rehabilitation is more explicitly prioritized. But more often you conclude that they should, for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to what they’re charged with.

Cultural Bias in High-Stakes Evaluations

Q: How do forensic psychologists ensure fairness and accuracy while accounting for cultural and contextual factors?

Dr. Heilbrun: With great difficulty. Cultural and situational influences are both understudied and underapplied in legal decision-making, but particularly in “high stakes” evaluations (by which I suppose you mean cases involving very serious charges). Such charges have the implicit baggage of public safety, fear, and outrage, meaning a lot of pressure to blame someone without making it nuanced. The best we can do is (a) study these influences more, (b) make them more a part of evaluations that we conduct, and (c) realize that the baggage with many of these cases will mean that there will be a lot of pressure to find a culprit, blame him, and move on.

Forensic Psychologists & the Media

Q: What role can forensic psychologists play in educating lawmakers and the media, particularly in high-profile cases?

Dr. Heilbrun: I don’t much care for the talking heads who appear after a mass tragedy or a high-profile homicide. I don’t find they contribute much meaningful, and may even harm by being distracting, poorly informed about the case, or through unfounded speculation. Rather, the way to inform legislators and the media is to comment about scientific findings and clinical considerations more generally, and limiting those comments to what we really know. Another way is to publish research articles, chapters, and books that provide good information that is not simply in response to a single event. Good legislative staff and good journalists have a way of locating those and contacting you, so helping them out within the boundaries of what you can meaningfully say is a good contribution to our society.

Recommended Reads for Aspiring Forensic Psychologists

Q: For high school students in our club, what books or articles would you recommend as foundational introductions to forensic psychology?

Dr. Heilbrun: I’m just finishing up an edited book that might be of interest to your group. It’s called “The Path Forward: Psychological Services in the Community with Justice-Involved Individuals and to Forensic Systems.” I’m excited about it because it covers a lot of exemplary work being done that’s outside of the perceptions of most when they think of “forensic psychology.” It will be published by Oxford, hopefully late in 2025. I’d also recommend the Oxford series “Best Practices in Forensic Psychology” if you’re after a particular topic. For anyone who want to dig into something very detailed, I’d recommend the fourth edition of Melton et al. (2018), Psychological Evaluations for the Courts: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and Lawyers.

Final Thoughts from Dr. Heilbrun

"For any of you seriously considering forensic psychology as a career, I’ll say that I’ve never regretted my decision to enter this field in 1980. May you find it as meaningful and rewarding as I have."

Dr. Heilbrun doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of forensic psychology, bias in courtrooms, and the slow crawl of reform. But beneath the skepticism is a challenge to push for better research, better application, and a justice system that truly listens. 

Got thoughts? Email us at ikim-27@peddie.org