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Prior research shows that individuals who have exhibited antisocial behavior are in poorer health than their same-aged peers. A major driver of poor health is aging itself, yet research has not investigated relationships between offending trajectories and biological aging. We tested the hypothesis that individuals following a life-course persistent (LCP) antisocial trajectory show accelerated aging in midlife. Trajectories of antisocial behavior from age 7 to 26 years were studied in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a population-representative birth cohort (N = 1037). Signs of aging were assessed at age 45 years using previously validated measures including biomarkers, clinical tests, and self-reports. First, we tested whether the association between antisocial behavior trajectories and midlife signs of faster aging represented a decline from initial childhood health. We then tested whether decline was attributable to tobacco smoking, antipsychotic medication use, debilitating illnesses in adulthood, adverse exposures in childhood (maltreatment, socioeconomic disadvantage) and adulthood (incarceration), and to childhood self-control difficulties. Study members with a history of antisocial behavior had a significantly faster pace of biological aging by midlife, and this was most evident among individuals following the LCP trajectory (β, 0.22, 95%CI, 0.14, 0.28, p ≤ 0.001). This amounted to 4.3 extra years of biological aging between ages 25–45 years for Study members following the LCP trajectory compared to low-antisocial trajectory individuals. LCP offenders also experienced more midlife difficulties with hearing (β, −0.14, 95%CI, −0.21, −0.08, p ≤ 0.001), balance (β, −0.13, 95%CI, −0.18, −0.06, p ≤ 0.001), gait speed (β, −0.18, 95%CI, −0.24, −0.10, p ≤ 0.001), and cognitive functioning (β, −0.25, 95%CI, −0.31, −0.18, p ≤ 0.001). Associations represented a decline from childhood health. Associations persisted after controlling individually for tobacco smoking, antipsychotic medication use, midlife illnesses, maltreatment, socioeconomic status, incarceration, and childhood self-control difficulties. However, the cumulative effect of these lifestyle characteristics together explained why LCP offenders have a faster Pace of Aging than their peers. While older adults typically age-out of crime, LCP offenders will likely age-into the healthcare system earlier than their chronologically same-aged peers. Preventing young people from offending is likely to have substantial benefits for health, and people engaging in a LCP trajectory of antisocial behaviors might be the most in need of health promotion programs. We offer prevention and intervention strategies to reduce the financial burden of offenders on healthcare systems and improve their wellbeing.

This study integrates developmental and life-course criminology with advances in socio-genomics to investigate the complex relationships among criminal justice (CJ) involvement (e.g., arrest, conviction, and incarceration), educational attainment, and genetic inheritance. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we conduct an analysis based on a whole-genome polygenic score for educational attainment. We find that participants with lower polygenic scores for educational attainment were significantly more likely to report CJ involvement during adolescence. We then show that the association between the education polygenic score and adolescent CJ involvement risk may be attributed to gene-environment correlation mechanisms that operate via both individual factors (e.g., psychopathic personality traits and delinquency) and social factors (e.g., family characteristics and school experiences). Finally, we find evidence that adolescent CJ involvement mediates the association between the education polygenic score and male participants’ actual educational attainment. Results also indicate that the influence of CJ involvement on education was partially confounded by genetic factors. Findings in this paper not only enrich existing criminological theories on the causes and consequences of CJ involvement in the life-course process but also help to improve causal inference in the study of the impact of CJ involvement on later-in-life outcomes.

Is there a “crime gene”? This question has been answered by the scientific community, and the response is a definitive “no.” Yet, it is unclear whether this information has been communicated to the general public. Furthermore, it is unclear whether people’s views about the genetics of crime influence their perceptions of the way offenders should be treated. This study uses attribution theory to understand how perceptions of the role of genetic factors in criminal behavior influence beliefs about the punishment, redeemability, and rehabilitation of offenders. Drawing on a national sample of White respondents (N = 392), this study finds that only a small proportion believe there is a single crime gene. Compared to other respondents, those who believe crime is caused by a single gene believe that punishment should be weakened, are less supportive of rehabilitation efforts, and believe that offenders are less capable of redemption. Implications of these findings are discussed.

While some research suggests perceptions of social cohesion and confidence in police effectiveness influence reporting decisions among victims of crime, no study has examined whether these influenc...

Because criminal behavior has many causes, it is reasonable to assume that some of those causal factors will interact. Interactions occur when the effect of one factor on an outcome depends in some...

Objectives: Examine the extent to which cognitive/psychological characteristics predict later polyvictimization. We employ a twin-based design that allows us to test the social neurocriminology hypothesis that environmental factors influence brain-based characteristics and influence behaviors like victimization.Methods: Using data from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (N = 1986), we capitalize on the natural experiment embedded in a discordant-twin design that allows for the adjustment of family environments and genetic factors. Results: The findings indicate that self-control, as well as symptoms of conduct disorder and anxiety, are related to polyvictimization even after adjusting for family environments and partially adjusting for genetic influences. After fully adjusting for genetic factors, only self-control was a statistically significant predictor of polyvictimization.Conclusion: The findings suggest polyvictimization is influenced by cognitive/psychological characteristics that individuals carry with them across contexts. Policies aimed at reducing victimization risks should consider interventions that address cognitive functioning and mental health.

What impact does formal punishment have on antisocial conduct—does it deter or promote it? The findings from a long line of research on the labeling tradition indicate formal punishments have the opposite‐of‐intended consequence of promoting future misbehavior. In another body of work, the results show support for deterrence‐based hypotheses that punishment deters future misbehavior. So, which is it? We draw on a nationally representative sample of British adolescent twins from the Environmental Risk (E‐Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study to perform a robust test of the deterrence versus labeling question. We leverage a powerful research design in which twins can serve as the counterfactual for their co‐twin, thereby ruling out many sources of confounding that have likely impacted prior studies. The pattern of findings provides support for labeling theory, showing that contact with the justice system—through spending a night in jail/prison, being issued an anti‐social behaviour order (ASBO), or having an official record—promotes delinquency. We conclude by discussing the impact these findings may have on criminologists’ and practitioners’ perspective on the role of the juvenile justice system in society.

Contact with the criminal justice (CJ) system is a relatively common occurrence in the United States. Criminologists and sociologists have long considered the impact of contact with the CJ system on later-in-life outcomes. This body of work has revealed a great deal of heterogeneity in life outcomes, suggesting individual differences are important to consider. At the same time, recent advances in the genomic sciences have allowed researchers to gather information from across the entire genome and to summarize that information into polygenic scores. In the present review, we consider how polygenic scores might be used to advance research into the impact of CJ system contact on life outcomes. In particular, we emphasize the importance of gene-environment interaction (G × E). We suggest that contact with the CJ system might represent a substantively important environmental moderator of polygenic risks. But we caution that studying the moderating role of contact with the CJ system will have its own complications—points that scholars must begin to consider and discuss now that the genomic era has reached the social sciences.

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been linked to a wide range of negative outcomes, including the development of low impulse control in adulthood. Because previous studies have identified impulsivit...

This study explores the moralization of purity and perceptions of harm as constraints on sex buying among men. Purchasing sex has long been considered an offense against public morality. While personal morality provides a powerful constraint on offending, and people may vary in the extent to which they experience moral intuitions about bodily and spiritual purity, research has so far neglected the role of purity moralization in understanding sex buying behavior. We hypothesize specifically that moral intuitions about purity constrain sex buying by leading people to perceive it as inherently wrong and by eliciting perceptions that sex buying is harmful to prostitutes. We test these hypotheses in a nationally representative survey of U.S. men ( N = 2,525). Results indicate that purity moralization is associated with reduced sex buying, and that this relationship is mediated fully by perceptions of sex buying as harming prostitutes.

Although many studies have highlighted the deleterious outcomes associated with access to firearms, others suggest gun ownership and carrying can have protective effects. This study attempts to adjudicate between these countervailing points and address several important gaps in the literature. To do so, data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health were used to assess the long-term associations between gun ownership and gun carrying in late adolescence and violence and violent victimization in early adulthood. Results from propensity score matching analyses suggest gun carrying, but not gun ownership, is associated with a higher risk of experiencing a violent victimization (b = 0.080, 95% CI = .032, .127) and engaging in violence with a weapon (b = 0.885, 95% CI = .392, 1.378). Efforts to curb firearm-related violence should consider focusing on those who carry guns for additional counseling about these risks.

Scholarship suggests that prison inmates who are visited may be less likely to recidivate. Questions exist, however, about whether the observed relationship is causal and, if so, whether it is cons...

General deterrence theory assumes objective risks of punishment and citizens’ perceptions of punishment risks are closely calibrated. Yet little empirical attention has been devoted to testing this assumption. Of the few studies that exist, most have tested the calibration with county-level indicators of objective punishment risk. This strategy has been criticized for being too far removed from the individual citizen: why should we expect citizens to know the punishment risks in such a large geographic unit? We estimated the calibration between objective punishment levels and individuals’ perceptions of those punishment levels by analyzing data drawn from a large sample of students (n = 11,085) from 44 schools in Ohio. Multi-level models found the calibration between objective punishment and students’ perceptions is weak and not statistically significant. More than half of our calibration estimates were in the wrong direction (i.e., they were negative) and results from interaction tests did not indicate that the calibration is any stronger among those with the highest levels of self-reported offending. We discuss the implications of these findings for policies rooted in general deterrence theory.

Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper’s sociobiological theory suggests that early family context influences an individual’s developmental trajectory in adolescence. A key hypothesis derived from the developmental model is that females growing up in a home without a father will have an earlier onset of puberty and may reach pubertal maturity sooner than their peers who grow up in homes with a father present. The current study uses a nationally representative sample of American youth (Add Health) to examine the association between having an absent biological father and female biological maturity, controlling for additional theoretically informed covariates. The current study contributes to the literature by utilizing a lifetime measure of absent biological father and a biological maturity scale (measured in adolescence) that taps into multiple aspects of pubertal development. Results from multivariate regression analysis revealed no significant association between absent biological father and female biological development. This finding suggests that, contrary to the sociobiological model, having an absent biological father in childhood is not predictive of advanced pubertal development among female adolescents.

SummaryPrior evolutionary theory provided reason to suspect that measures of development and reproduction would be correlated with antisocial behaviours in human and non-human species. Behavioural genetics has revealed that most quantitative traits are heritable, suggesting that these phenotypic correlations may share genetic aetiologies. We use genome-wide association study data to estimate the genetic correlations between various measures of reproductive development (N = 52 776–318 863) and antisocial behaviour (N = 31 968). Our genetic correlation analyses demonstrate that alleles associated with higher reproductive output (number of children ever born, rg = 0.50, P = 0.0065) were positively correlated with alleles associated with antisocial behaviour, whereas alleles associated with more delayed reproductive onset (age at first birth, rg = −0.64, P = 0.0008) were negatively associated with alleles linked to antisocial behaviour. Ultimately, these findings coalesce with evolutionary theories suggesting that increased antisocial behaviours may partly represent a faster life history approach, which may be significantly calibrated by genes.Declaration of interestNone.

Purpose To offer a preliminary discussion of what modern genomics research affords criminologists studying racial inequalities. Methods I review recent evidence from genomics and socio-genomics research that has bearing on how society and researchers should view race. This leads to a discussion of the role of race as a predictor of criminological phenotypes and, thus, to a consideration of the role that genomics research may (or may not) play in helping criminologists unpack the etiology of racial inequalities. Results I offer a constructivist perspective on race and show that it is compatible with modern genomics research. I also conclude that it is unlikely that genetic factors will explain racial inequalities independent of social and environmental influences. Instead, racial inequalities likely arise from social/environmental influences or from the interaction between social/environmental factors and genetic factors. Conclusions The conclusion of this essay considers several important cautions and philosophical questions that must be kept in mind any time racial inequalities are studied, regardless of whether the focus is on criminological outcomes, health outcomes, or something else entirely.

Recent deterrence literature has found that the degree to which sanction threats are perceived to influence subsequent offending differs within individuals and between individuals over time. This study examines whether three psychosocial aspects (temperance, perspective, responsibility) relevant to the maturity of judgment predict within-individual and between-individual differences in levels of perceptual deterrence. Random effects regression models with fixed effects (hybrid models) are used to estimate the impact of maturity of judgment on the perceived risks, costs, and benefits of crime among a sample of serious juvenile offenders from the Pathways to Desistance study over 7 years of development. The results support both within-person effects and between-person effects. More mature judgment ability is generally associated with the perception of greater risks, heavier costs of punishment, and fewer rewards of crime. The rate of change in perceptual deterrence by maturity of judgment varies between individuals. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Widespread implementation of offender reentry programming has increased justice program evaluations but few have featured research designs sufficiently rigorous to optimally inform policy. Program evaluations typically neglect program fidelity concerns to focus on outcome analysis that seldom feature optimal spuriousness reduction. The current study, the second component of a mixed-method design evidencing fidelity, presents the methods and outcome findings for the Delaware County Transition (DCT) Program, an Ohio jail-based crimesolutions.gov endorsed treatment intervention for dually diagnosed offenders. Review of the reentry and dual-diagnosis literature provides a background for description of the DCT program and methods employed to observe programming effects. Findings indicated DCT participation was associated with overall recidivism reductions and time to recidivism and orient discussion around related rehabilitative modalities.

Recent research provides evidence of intergenerational continuity in self-control. This body of research, however, can be advanced in several ways to enhance our understanding of this association. We add to this literature by examining whether maternal and paternal self-control, assessed during a child’s infancy, is associated with latent classes of child self-control based on assessments from eight waves of data spanning age 4 to age 15. Supplementary analyses were also performed using ordinary least squares regression to examine individual child self-control at each of the eight waves. The results indicate that higher maternal and paternal self-control is associated with latent class membership characterizing higher child self-control. Moreover, maternal and paternal self-control were found to be equally consequential for differentiating between a low self-control relative to a moderate self-control class, whereas maternal self-control was a slightly stronger predictor than paternal self-control for differentiating a low self-control relative to a high self-control class. Supplementary OLS models revealed that both maternal and paternal self-control were statistically significant predictors of child self-control at 54 months of age and provided relatively equal contributions. But, as the child ages, the influence of paternal self-control appears to decrease as compared to maternal self-control. This study offers evidence that both maternal and paternal self-control are important for understanding the intergenerational continuity of self-control, but additional research with larger and more diverse samples is needed to better understand the relative importance of mothers and fathers for this continuity.

In his Presidential Address to the American Society of Criminology, Agnew proposed a new theory of crime causation referring to the key independent variable as “social concern.” Social concern theory highlights the nuanced association between self-interest, altruistic behavior, and criminal behavior. Although there is considerable indirect evidence to support the theory—indeed, it is an example of inductive theory construction—there have been few direct tests of Agnew’s statements. As a result, the current study represents one of the first tests of social concern theory by examining the direct relationship between social concern and criminal behavior. We also test whether social concern mediates the effect of sex on criminal behavior, thereby offering insight into the gender gap in offending. Drawing on data from a nationally representative sample of American adults, we perform exploratory factor analysis to construct a measure of social concern. Results from negative binominal regression models r...

Federal funding efforts have increased the number of reentry programs over the past decade with corresponding evaluations of these initiatives. Reentry programming targets a wide range of offenders though most have focused on medium and high-risk individuals with substance abuse and/or mental health disorders. This research note provides a profile overview of two programs in central Ohio funded by the Second Chance Act and offers a summary of process and outcome evaluation findings from both initiatives. Results from a mixed methods research design suggested that the programs were largely successful in terms of reducing recidivism among participants, though issues related to programmatic fidelity were also identified. While these programs pre-date more current offender intervention efforts, such as the Justice Mental Health Collaboration Program, identified barriers to program success reaffirm the saliency of longstanding problems embedded in and challenged by correctional and police culture.

Research in evolutionary psychology, and life history theory in particular, has yielded important insights into the developmental processes that underpin variation in growth, psychological functioning, and behavioral outcomes across individuals. Yet, there are methodological concerns that limit the ability to draw causal inferences about human development and psychological functioning within a life history framework. The current study used a simulation-based modeling approach to estimate the degree of genetic confounding in tests of a well-researched life history hypothesis: that father absence ( X ) is associated with earlier age at menarche ( Y ). The results demonstrate that the genetic correlation between X and Y can confound the phenotypic association between the two variables, even if the genetic correlation is small—suggesting that failure to control for the genetic correlation between X and Y could produce a spurious phenotypic correlation. We discuss the implications of these results for research on human life history, and highlight the utility of incorporating genetically sensitive tests into future life history research.

A large body of research finds that unstructured socializing with peers is positively associated with delinquency during adolescence. Yet, existing research has not ruled out the potential for confounding due to genetic factors and factors that can be traced to environments shared between siblings. To fill this void, the current study examines whether the association between unstructured socializing with peers and delinquent behavior remains when accounting for genetic factors, shared environmental influences, and a variety of non-shared environmental covariates. We do so by using data from the twin subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 1200 at wave 1 and 1103 at wave 2; 51% male; mean age at wave 1 = 15.63). Results from both cross-sectional and lagged models indicate the association between unstructured socializing with peers and delinquent behavior remains when controlling for both genetic and environmental influences. Supplementary analyses examining the association under different specifications offer additional, albeit qualified, evidence supportive of this finding. The study concludes with a discussion highlighting the importance of limiting free time with friends in the absence of authority figures as a strategy for reducing delinquency during adolescence.

A crisis of confidence has struck the behavioral and social sciences. A key factor driving the crisis is the low levels of statistical power in many studies. Low power is problematic because it leads to increased rates of false-negative results, inflated false-discovery rates, and over-estimates of effect sizes. To determine whether these issues impact criminology, we computed estimates of statistical power by drawing 322 mean effect sizes and 271 average sample sizes from 81 meta-analyses. The results indicated criminological studies, on average, have a moderate level of power (mean = 0.605), but there is variability. This variability is observed across general studies as well as those designed to test interventions. Studies using macro-level data tend to have lower power than studies using individual-level data. To avoid a crisis of confidence, criminologists must not ignore statistical power and should be skeptical of large effects found in studies with small samples.

Rational choice theory in criminology is based on a model of decision-making, expected utility theory (EUT), that research in psychology and economics has shown to be descriptively inaccurate for many types of human decisions. Because of its ability to account for intuitive reasoning and anomalies in crime decisions, prospect theory (PT) may be a viable alternative to EUT for explaining criminal choices. The present study tests several hypotheses derived from PT about the effects of framing, reference dependence, and decision weights in crime decisions. We present findings from a series of survey-based experiments conducted with three different samples. The results support our hypotheses derived from EUT, but not those from PT. We find that although initial wealth, criminal benefits, and arrest risk impact offender decision-making, sanction-cost frames and gains/losses from monetary reference points have little if any effect. We discuss the implications of our findings and directions for future research.

An emerging line of research has begun to reveal that victims of crime share many characteristics with offenders, leading to the conclusion that the victim-offender overlap is quite substantial. Though research suggests victims and offenders are both likely to display signs of low self-control and to share certain lifestyle factors, few studies have sought to systematically analyze the various factors that converge (or diverge) across different groups: victims, offenders, victim-offenders, and total abstainers. Using data obtained from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we examined the risk factors associated with being classified into each of the four groups. Results revealed that victim-offenders—compared to others—tended to have the highest scores on risk factors for victimization and offending. Conversely, total abstainers tended to score the lowest on measures considered risk factors. Respondents classified as victim only and those classified as offend...

Purpose This study examined the effectiveness of Second Chance Act Grant funded reentry program for dually diagnosed female offenders involved in opioid and opiate use. Methods A mixed methods design utilizing qualitative interviews and a quasi-experimental design was used to both determine program effectiveness and explore women's narratives regarding their addiction and incarceration. Results Findings from a quasi-experimental design indicate that program participation significantly reduced recidivism as did marital status. Qualitative interview findings suggest that the licit use of prescription opioid medication preceded heroin dependency in many cases which resulted in related criminality. Focus group interviews also indicated that participants responded positively to programming but had variable levels of self-efficacy. Conclusions Reentry programs designed for male offenders can also reduce recidivism among female offenders. America's burgeoning heroin epidemic has the potential for significant costs for local criminal justice systems as more lower level drug offenders are sentenced to jails instead of state prisons.

The current study draws on two cohorts of African American youths from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, Longitudinal Cohort Study to examine whether perceived racial discrimination directly and indirectly affects juvenile delinquency. The analyses reveal that racial discrimination may foster offending by increasing (1) the likelihood that African American youths will drop out of school and (2) the degree to which they associate with delinquent peers. Evidence supporting the pathway between racial discrimination, associating with delinquent peers, and offending was found after introducing controls for demographic, social, and individual trait factors. In a society that remains racialized, it thus appears that a full explanation of African Americans’ offending should take into account the ways in which racial subordination may place African American youths on pathways that lead toward criminal involvement.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether prenatal exposure to secondhand smoke among non-smoking mothers is associated with their child’s development of self-control from childhood into adolescence. We use longitudinal survey data collected from non-smoking mothers (n = 750) who participated in the U.S. Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development and estimate a series of OLS regressions and multilevel models for change to examine development in self-control from 54 months to 15 years of age. Controlling for several potential confounding influences--including maternal self-control, maternal intelligence, maternal education, and maternal depression--prenatal exposure to secondhand smoke was estimated to have a negative association with the development of self-control across childhood and into adolescence. This study highlights the importance of minimizing expectant mothers’ exposure to secondhand smoke due to the risks that may extend to their unborn child’s developmental trajectory of self-control.

The current study examined the association between playing high school football and involvement in violent behaviors in sibling pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The analysis revealed that youth who played high school football self-reported more violence than those youth who did not play football. Quantitative genetic analyses revealed that 85% of the variance in football participation was the result of genetic factors and 62% of the variance in violent behavior was due to genetic factors. Additional analyses indicated that 54% of the covariance between football participation and violence was due to genetics and 46% was the result of nonshared environmental influences. However, even after controlling for genetic influences, participation in football appeared to increase violent behavior.

Intelligence has been linked to antisocial, violent, and criminal behaviors. Surprisingly, however, there is a lack of research examining whether intelligence differentially affects the risk for personal victimization. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining whether adolescent levels of verbal intelligence are related to the odds of personal victimization in adolescence and adulthood. This study analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The results revealed a statistically significant and consistent association between intelligence and victimization. Persons with lower intelligence were more likely to report being victimized even after controlling for the effects of violent criminal behavior. Future research would benefit by examining more closely the association between IQ score and the risk for victimization over the life course.

Moffitt’s taxonomy remains an influential theoretical framework within criminology. Despite much empirical scrutiny, comparatively less time has been spent testing the snares component of Moffitt’s work. Specifically, are there factors that might engender continued criminal involvement for individuals otherwise likely to desist? The current study tested whether gang membership increased the odds of contact with the justice system for each of the offender groups specified in Moffitt’s original developmental taxonomy. Our findings provided little evidence that gang membership increased the odds of either adolescence-limited or life-course persistent offenders being processed through the criminal justice system. Moving forward, scholars may wish to shift attention to alternative variables—beyond gang membership—when testing the snares hypothesis.

Developmental/life-course (DLC) criminologists often study the age-graded trajectories of traits and behaviors known to correlate with antisocial outcomes. Much of this work has attempted to discern whether traits like impulse control are relatively stable across different portions of the life course. A range of statistical techniques have been employed by researchers attempting to parameterize relative stability. Yet, despite these attempts, much of the evidence remains mixed. We draw on data from the Pathways to Desistance study to examine whether the methods typically used to analyze longitudinal development provide a parameter estimate for relative stability. The results of our demonstration reveal that none of the methods typically employed by DLC researchers provide a parameter estimate for relative stability. In order to address this oversight, we develop a novel method—P(Δ)—that can be used to estimate the amount of relative (in)stability that is observed in a longitudinal dataset. Although P(Δ) provides a direct estimate of the degree to which relative (in)stability is observed in one’s dataset, there are several important points that must be considered by future DLC researchers in order to further develop P(Δ) into a statistic that can be used for inferential analysis. We consider these points in the discussion.

This study examined the association between sexual orientation and nonviolent and violent delinquency across the life course. We analyzed self-reported nonviolent and violent delinquency in a sample of heterosexual males (N = 5220-7023) and females (N = 5984-7875), bisexuals (N = 34-73), gay males (N = 145-189), and lesbians (N = 115-150) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The analyses revealed, in general, that bisexuals were the most delinquent of the sexual orientation categories for both males and females. Additional analyses revealed that heterosexual males reported significantly higher levels of both violent and nonviolent delinquency than gay males, whereas lesbians reported more involvement in nonviolent delinquency and, to a lesser extent, violent delinquency relative to heterosexual females. Analyses also revealed that lesbians reported significantly more delinquent behavior, particularly for nonviolent delinquency, than gay males. Future research should explore the mechanisms that account for these observed patterns and how they can be used to more fully understand the etiology of delinquency.

The current study examined whether adolescent IQ predicted risk for mortality by the age of 32. Analyses of data from the Add Health revealed that IQ was related to mortality risk, such that respondents with relatively lower IQs were significantly more likely to experience early life mortality when compared to respondents with relatively higher IQs. This association remained statistically significant even after controlling for a host of covariates such as race, gender, involvement in violent behaviors, levels of self-control, and poverty. The average IQ of deceased respondents was approximately 95, whereas the average IQ of living respondents was about 100.

There has been significant interest in examining the developmental factors that predispose individuals to chronic criminal offending. This body of research has identified some social-environmental risk factors as potentially important. At the same time, the research producing these results has generally failed to employ genetically sensitive research designs, thereby potentially generating biased parameter estimates. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by using both a standard social science methodology (SSSM) and two separate genetically informative research designs to examine whether parent, teacher, and peer risk factors are associated with four maladaptive outcomes: arrests, low IQ, reduced self-control, and a combined measure of the “truly disadvantaged.” Analysis of twin pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health revealed that the SSSMs produced upwardly biased estimates of the impact of social-environmental influences on each of the four outcomes. Once genetic factors were controlled, the effect of social-environmental risk was reduced (but remained significant in certain cases). We conclude by discussing these findings in the context of criminal justice policy and their implications for future criminological research.

There has been a significant amount of interest in understanding some of the key issues related to school suspensions and expulsions. One of the more intriguing and studied of these issues has to do with factors that contribute to variation in school disciplinary sanctions. To date, however, no research has examined the genetic architecture to either suspensions or expulsions. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing a sample of twin pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The results of the analyses revealed that shared and nonshared environmental factors accounted for the variation in suspensions. Genetic influences, in contrast, were the dominant source of variation for expulsions. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and avenues for future research.

There is a large body of evidence revealing that minorities-in particular, Black citizens-are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. But the causes of these inequalities have been difficult to pin down. One line of work suggests the inequalities in arrest may be traced to inequalities in exposure to school discipline. Specifically, the school-to-prison pipeline literature suggests inequalities in school disciplinary practices may go on to produce inequalities in arrest prevalence. In this article, we draw on a large nationally representative sample to test the hypothesis that racial inequalities in school-based punishments will (partially) explain inequalities in adulthood arrest. We find support for this pathway and, by drawing on recent developments in epidemiology, produce initial estimates of the degree to which policymakers might be able to close the racial gap in arrest if it were possible to close the racial gap in school discipline. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior evolutionary theory provided reason to suspect that measures of development and reproduction would be correlated with antisocial behaviors in human and non-human species. Behavioral genetics has revealed that most quantitative traits are heritable, suggesting that these phenotypic correlations may share genetic etiologies. We use GWAS data to estimate the genetic correlations between various measures of reproductive development (N= 52,776 – 318,863) and antisocial behavior (N= 31,968). Our genetic correlation analyses demonstrate that alleles associated with higher reproductive output (number of children ever born, rg=0.50, p=.0065) were positively correlated with alleles associated with antisocial behavior, whereas alleles associated with more delayed reproductive onset (age of first birth, rg=-.64, p=.0008) were negatively associated with alleles linked to antisocial behavior. Ultimately, these findings coalesce with evolutionary theories suggesting that increased antisocial behaviors may partly represent a faster life history approach, which may be significantly calibrated by genes.