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Chapter 11 - Differential Susceptibility and Its Usefulness for the Understanding of Crime and the Rehabilitation of Criminals

from Part IV - Differential Susceptibility to Environmental Influences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2025

Satoshi Kanazawa
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

Despite widespread integration of genetic research by most disciplines, genetics has largely been excised by the field of criminology, a field that continues to be guided almost exclusively by a sociological paradigm. Part of the reason for why genetic research has not been synthesized into the criminological scholarship is due to concerns about the policy implications that might flow directly from it. Specifically, critics of genetic and biosocial research routinely argue that studying the genetic basis to criminality likely would lead to oppressive crime-control policies and perhaps even a new eugenics movement. If criminologists had an accurate understanding of how genetic influences relate to criminal involvement, then these concerns would largely be assuaged. Against this backdrop, the current chapter uses Belsky’s differential susceptibility model as the centerpiece to show that genetic research is not only useful in understanding the etiology of criminal involvement but also that it holds great promise in guiding the development of crime prevention and rehabilitation programs.

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