Objectives The current study aims to further unpack the link between head injury and criminal behavior by examining the association between brain injury and changes in moral disengagement. Methods The current study uses the Pathways to Desistance study (N = 1354) to estimate a series of longitudinal cross-lagged dynamic panel models to examine within-individual changes in moral disengagement across the study period. Results The results revealed that moral disengagement decreased over time, but sustaining a head injury resulted in a subsequent increase in moral disengagement across the study period. Conclusions Head injuries may compromise expected changes in moral disengagement via neuropsychological deficits in brain regions that are implicated in moral decisionmaking. A continued investigation of this link would inform both criminological theory and intervention programming. Keywords Brain injury. Moral disengagement. Acquired neuropsychological deficits In April 2013, President Obama announced the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative (Mott et al. 2018; National Institutes of Health 2014). This ambitious project is aimed at understanding virtually all aspects of neurological activity and related processes including memory,