The Future of Biosocial Criminology

Abstract

In this article we describe how the ascendency of biosocial criminology challenges the “sacred values” of the discipline, values that have in the past elevated the professional ideology of criminologists over science. We argue that biosocial criminology can lead to a criminology this is rooted more in science and empirical observation than in ideology and that biosocial criminology can link criminology to a diverse array of other disciplines and research methodologies. The forces that would diminish or restrain biosocial criminology, however, cannot be discounted.

Keywords

Biosocial genetics biology crime criminology

By now the story has been told so often that it is a mere script in criminological discourse. The script is repeated, almost instinctively, by critics of biological theorizing in the social sciences and remains printed in virtually every course text in criminology (for an exception see Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2010; Wright & Miller, 1998; ). In short, the script goes something like this: Biological theorizing is a “dangerous” idea because it created Nazism, was used to justify racism and sexism, and led to the eugenics movement in the United States (Pinker, 2003; Rafter, 2008). With this script in hand, the professional ideology of criminology has worked to almost eliminate biological theorizing from the field. For example, empirical studies show that biological theorizing is rarely taught at PhD granting criminology/criminal justice programs, that almost no biologically informed dissertations are completed each year, and that few biological studies have been published by mainstream criminology journals (Wright et al., 2008).

As Hunt (1999) and others have so readily documented, the repression of science is not new. “Old style” scientific repression, where a church or government restricts scientific investigation, is a common historical theme, and occasionally emerges in American society (DeLisi, Beaver, Vaughn, & Wright, 2009). Confronting us today is what Hunt (1999) refers to as the “New style” of scientific repression. This form of repression is internal to academic disciplines in that it restricts scientific inquiry by imposing rigid ideological boundaries about certain topics and it requires scholars to self-censor their own work (Gottfredson, 1994). Of course, when science is repressed, either directly through the State or indirectly through threat of disciplinary excommunication, knowledge suffers. Moreover, science itself takes on an entirely political meaning—one that advocates for certain causes and for specific groups and one that marshals resources when those causes or groups are subject to criticism. Berger (2002) echoed these sentiments when, speaking to his fellow sociologists, he stated that “ the ideologues who have been in the ascendancy for the last thirty years have deformed science into an instrument of agitation and propaganda . . . invariably for causes on the left of the ideological spectrum” (p. 29). In criminology, the script equating biological theorizing to aversive governmental interventions represents more than a simple but questionable account of the history of biological criminology, it represents an ideological boundary that has been used to exclude a large body of science from the field.

Yet there is evidence that the tide may be turning and that the old ideological boundaries are beginning to collapse. Today there is a growing interest in biological theorizing on crime and understanding of the biological and genetic factors related to crime producing individual traits. This interest has created a new criminology—one that merges biological theorizing with more traditional social investigations. Known as biosocial criminology, this new paradigm stands in the forefront of theoretical and empirical advancement in criminology. If carried out fully, biosocial criminology has the potential to create a fundamental paradigm shift in the field—a shift, we believe, that will advance criminology as a science and will lead to a more complete understanding of the biological and social factors related to pathological behavior.

Although the potential for this shift remains to be fully realized, we are also sensitive to the roadblocks and landmines that could deter continued expansion of the biosocial paradigm. Indeed, there remains an ingrained resistance to biological theorizing in criminology—a resistance that is based largely in ideology and not on scientific merits (see Walby & Carrier, 2010a & b, for an excellent illustration of a purely ideological critique of biosocial criminology). The ideological resistance, we argue, comes not simply from the role that biological thinking played in lending credence to Nazism, racism, or eugenics in a previous historical era. Rather, today’s continuing antagonism can be tied more closely to the fact that biological theorizing confronts many sacred values in the social sciences generally and in criminology specifically.

In the following pages, we thus document the fundamental role of ideology in criminology, how ideology worked to exclude a broad base of scientific findings from the field, and how a biosocial criminology can simultaneously reduce ideological influences and elevate the role of science in the field. We conclude that biosocial criminology offers scientific consilience (Wilson, 1998) and will, ultimately, lead to new insights into human violence and even to more humane ways of managing criminal behavior.

Before embarking on this journey, we want to state what should be obvious but often is not understood. In advocating that criminologists take seriously a biosocial perspective, we are not some latter-day Lombrosians embracing a crude form of biological determinism. In fact, as with any scientific findings and theorizing, biosocial knowledge should be subjected to organized skepticism, a core norm of science (Merton, 1973). Rather, our view is simply as follows: The precise connection of biological factors to criminal conduct is not a matter of ideology but of objective reality. This connection can only be unpacked through careful study. Whether one wishes biology to be robustly implicated in crime or to have no role whatsoever is really beside the point. What matters is what, in reality, the relationship is revealed to be through rigorous scholarship.

Related, we do not deny—as critics have shown—that biological thinking has been put to ill use, especially in supporting coercive policies targeted at poor and minority peoples (Cullen, 2011). We can make the trite but still true rejoinder that many of these same critics do not condemn Marxist thinking, despite its role in legitimizing authoritarian regimes with awful human rights records. The point, of course, is that scientific ideas about the human condition—whether biological or Marxist—can be distorted to justify many untoward policies and practices. The responsibility for inhumanity ultimately lies with those who practice it. To use these bad acts to try to stifle scientific inquiry does not make the world a better place but an inauthentic one in which intellectual fear curtails what we are willing to study and know. Science must lead to truth—to the obligation to “tell it like it is.” If someone then attempts to use this knowledge in disquieting ways, as moral citizens, we must all stand up against policies and practices that are needlessly harmful. But we cannot let the tail (potential consequences) wag the dog (what we are willing to study). We will return to this point—the policy implications of a biosocial perspective—closer to the end of this article.

The Depth of Ideology in Criminology

Criminologists have carefully documented how ideology influences a range of lay views on the causes of crime (Gabbidon & Boisvert, 2012), on the criminal justice system (Flannigan & Longmire, 1996), and on support for correctional policies (Cullen, Vose, Johnson, & Unnever, 2007). The consistent pattern found in these studies is that ideology matters—that is, ideology shapes, molds, and influences world views that, in turn, influence views on crime and justice. Perhaps, however, this is to be expected by a lay audience. After all, the general public largely does not consult academic journals, has no formal scholarly training, and tends to rely on the media and personal experience for information about crime. In part owing to the influence of ideology on lay viewpoints, criminologists often classify public perceptions of crime as “misinformed” or as “naive.”

The implicit assumption, however, is that lay views differ from expert views—for no other reason than expert views are thought to have developed out of prolonged, objective, research. As several studies have revealed, however, this assumption is incorrect for at least two reasons: First, criminologists, the data tell us, are also frequently beholden to political ideology. In a series of studies dating back two decades, Walsh, Ellis, and their colleagues have carefully documented the pervasive influence of ideology in criminology and how ideology strongly predicts “expert” views on the causes of crime. So strong is the influence of ideology in criminology that Walsh and Ellis (2004) labeled it the “Achilles Heel” of criminology. Results from their studies, for example, have consistently found that amongst criminologists, self-identified political orientation predicts, almost perfectly, criminologists’ views on the causes of crime. Liberals, they found, uniformly favored theories that locate the causes of crime in an unfair economic system, in social inequality, and in racism. Conversely, conservatives tended to favor theories that locate the causes of crime in individual traits or in dysfunctional family processes (Cooper, Ellis, & Walsh, 2008; Cooper, Walsh, & Ellis, 2010; Ellis & Hoffman, 1990; Walsh & Ellis, 2004). Neither group, these studies point out, favors biological explanations.

Rather remarkably, parallel results were found in a survey of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania residents by Gabbidon and Boisvert (2012). Gabbidon and Boisvert presented respondents with 37 statements designed to reveal support for various criminological theories. They found that self-reported political orientation corresponded to lay views on the causes of crime—in a fashion very similar to the results presented by Cooper, Ellis, and Walsh (2008). “Conservatives were significantly more supportive than moderates and liberals of classical theory, biological theory, psychological theory, and social control theory,” they report, whereas “Liberals were significantly more supportive of critical theory than moderates and conservatives” (Gabbidon & Boisvert, 2012, p. 53). Moreover, similar to Cooper et al. (2010), they also found that biological explanations for crime received the lowest endorsements overall, with a majority of conservatives, moderates, and liberals rating biological explanations as the least potent cause of crime. That “expert” and “lay” views are so similar points to the overarching power of ideology in understanding crime—especially amongst criminologists.

Second, criminologists are not the only group of scholars influenced by political ideology. Virtually every study ever completed on the political orientation of university faculty has found that liberal ideology is the dominant ideology on campuses across the United States; in fact, in many academic fields, it is virtually the only ideology (Klein, Stern, & Western, 2005; Lipset, 1994). For example, in a study of 1,471 professors from 927 universities, Gross and Simmons (2007) found that in major research institutions—institutions that produce most of the research on crime—less than 4% of faculty classified themselves as “conservative.” Moreover, in a study of political party affiliation, Klein and Stern (2006) found that the average Democrat to Republican ratio amongst all surveyed faculty was 15:1; the lowest ratio was found in economics (3:1), whereas the highest ratios were found in anthropology (30:1) and sociology (28:1). The ideological sentiments of sociologists are especially important to criminology, if for no other reason than criminology evolved out of sociology and many criminologists have been trained as sociologists. Furthermore, it is instructive that Klein and Stern (2006) also found that political ideology was a robust predictor of support for a range of traditionally liberal government interventions, such as advocacy for gun control and limitations on the free-market.

Political ideology thus shapes not only the views of the general public but also the views of scholars, especially social scientists (Horowitz, 1994). Indeed, there is reason to believe that much of what passes for social science, including criminology, is the extension of an ideologically informed worldview. This worldview, we argue, has excluded biology from the study of crime for reasons that have little to do with the normal narrative presented by critics. To be sure, the past role of biological thinking in justifying oppressive measures is not inconsequential. But most of these outrageous acts occurred 50 to 100 years ago and would hardly seem possible in 21st-century America (e.g., a call for eugenics would not find a receptive audience, including among biosocial criminologists). Instead, we suspect that the persisting antagonism to biology occurs because this approach violates many deeply held personal and professional convictions. That is, using biology to explain human conduct, including crime, is inconsistent with scholars’ ideological allegiance to what Haidt (2011) describes as “sacred values.”

The Tribal Moral Community and the Rejection of Biology

At the 2011 meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Jonathan Haidt queried the audience of over 1,000 psychologists to divulge their political orientation. With slightly more than 1,000 people in attendance, only 3 publically admitted to being politically conservative. Haidt estimated the ratio of liberals to conservatives in the audience to be about 266:1. This, he said, was statistically impossible. What was more important than the lopsided ratio, according to Haidt, was the culture those raw numbers represented. According to Haidt, the field of social psychology has evolved into a tribal moral community (TMC).

In any TMC, argued Haidt, there are sacred values—that is, values that bind and blind members to a specific way of thinking. These values produce conformity because the majority believes in the values and because any violation of the values results in strong moral condemnation. Members of the TMC will, stated Haidt, claim the mantle of science “Until the moment that it threatens a sacred value.” When that happens, members of the TMC will ditch or distort science to enforce the sacred value. Haidt listed five sacred values that function to limit scholarly discourse and to stigmatize violators: Race differences, sex differences, blaming the victim, stereotype accuracy, and what he termed nativism.

Again referring to Haidt, the social sciences underwent a transformation in the 1960s. Scholars in the social sciences became enamored with civil rights, racism, feminism, the antiwar movement, and Marxism (see also Lipset, 1994). They imported these values into their fields and established strong moral boundaries by creating vertical moral hierarchies. At the top of this moral hierarchy was a belief in what we label as pure egalitarianism. Pure egalitarianism reflects two-pronged belief system endemic in liberal academic thinking: First, pure egalitarianism is a value based judgment—not a science based judgment—that all individuals are essentially equal. There is an embrace of the incontrovertible assumption that there are no preexisting, meaningful differences between individuals or groups in their traits, propensities, or behaviors. In many ways, a belief in pure egalitarianism is similar to “blank slate” views on individuals (Pinker, 2003); however, the pure egalitarian viewpoint highlights the elevated moral sentiment that enshrines this core sacred value. The second prong of the pure egalitarian viewpoint is the related idea that if differences exist, they must be produced by factors external to the individual. In this way, differences between racial groups, between sexes, or between economic classes must be explained without referring to individual traits or behaviors, which would be synonymous with blaming the victim.

Although the roots of the rejection of biological theorizing date back before the 1960s, especially with the work of Sutherland (1947), biological theorizing became a polarizing, career ending, issue from the late 1960s onward. It did so, we argue, because biological theorizing violates not just one of Haidt’s sacred values, but all of them. Biological theorizing, for example, focuses on the nature of individual genetic and biological variation; it focuses on genetic differences between races and sexes; it argues that evolution has shaped our mental, physical, and behavioral capacities; it recognizes that human beings have evolved senses (some refer to these as instincts), but above all, it points out that pure egalitarianism is a social fiction. Human beings vary in almost every trait and some of this variation is caused by difference in genes.

The perceived threat to sacred academic values materialized with sometimes vicious and sometimes career ending results. Indeed, contemporary academic history is littered with examples where honest scholars have been publically sanctioned, their lives threatened, or their careers terminated for violating sacred values.

The eminent scholar Arthur Jenson, whose work on human intelligence still shapes the field, had his life threatened and required a bodyguard when on campus after he questioned the ability of government programs to equalize the intelligence of children.

Linda Gottfredson, a psychologist who challenged affirmative action, saw her bid for promotion undermined and witnessed her university ban her from receiving research funds from a funding agency (http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009interview.pdf).

James Watson, who codiscovered the famous double-helix of DNA, was removed from his research duties at the lab he founded for linking race to intelligence.

Larry Summers, at the time president of Harvard University, created a firestorm when he suggested the possibility that women are underrepresented in top science programs because they are dissimilar to men in certain mental abilities.

More pertinent to criminology, James Q.Wilson (1975) was lambasted for his book Thinking About Crime, where he challenged the core criminological belief in “root causes” of crime, and again when he published with Richard Herrnstein (1985) Crime and Human Nature. Indeed, the criminological reaction to Crime and Human Nature was decidedly hostile.

Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s (1994) The Bell Curve, which generated accusations of racism and resulted in the American Psychological Association issuing a formal statement about human intelligence.

Finally, we note the difference in criminological reaction to Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) A General Theory of Crime, which focuses on an individual trait, and Sampson and Laub’s (1993) Crime in the Making, which emphasizes traditional social environmental causes. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s work generated tremendous ideological hostility (Geis, 2000), even though it has been largely empirically confirmed (Pratt & Cullen, 2000), whereas Sampson and Laub’s work has been devoid of criticism and has won every major award in the field.

The role of ideology in criminology, and in the social sciences more broadly, has strongly shaped research agendas and research findings. It has prevented research from being conducted, prevented ideas from being explored and even discussed, and it has sterilized most criminological theories. Even Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) theory on self-control finds no room for genetic or biological functioning—which is contrary to evidence that self-control is strongly genetic (Beaver, Wright, & DeLisi, 2007; Friedman et al., 2008; Wright & Beaver, 2005). From our viewpoint, the “sacred values” of criminology impeded the legitimate study of the role of biology, not because the study of biological linkages to human conduct inevitably leads to harsh or brutal government interventions, as critics propose, but because biological thinking and biologically based empirical findings directly confront the professional ideology of criminologists. As Haidt (2011) notes, when a field holds sacred values it cannot be said to be a “reality-based community.”

Shifting Context and New Possibilities

Despite the almost total exclusion of biology from criminology, a few criminologists undertook research in the area. Anthony Walsh, Lee Ellis, Nicole Rafter, David Rowe, Adrian Raine, and Diana Fishbein produced important scholarly writings of enduring value. Yet because their work was overtly biological in its orientation, it failed to gain traction with the majority of criminologists. Even today, antagonism toward biological thinking remains high—as we have stated.

Still, the ideological damn preventing the development of biosocial perspectives is weakening and has sprung some leaks. The reality that humans are biological creatures who vary in biological traits is becoming too obvious to ignore. As this special issue shows, more and more criminologists are being attracted to the biological paradigm. Collectively, they have helped not only to rejuvenate biological research into crime but, to a degree, have made discussions about the role of biology in antisocial behavior respectable (Beaver et al., 2009; Boisvert, & Wright, 2008; Boutwell & Beaver, 2008; DeLisi, Beaver, Vaughn, & Wright, 2009; Vaske, Makarios, Boisvert, Beaver, & Wright, 2009; Vaughn, DeLisi, Beaver, & Wright, 2009).

Why has this occurred? Although other considerations likely are relevant, we will cite four factors that have created a context more conducive to the development of biosocial criminology. First, although somewhat implicitly, biology moved into mainstream criminology with the publication of Moffitt’s (1993) seminal article on life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited offenders. She introduced a new type of biology—what we would term a “sanitized biology.” By sanitized, we mean that she set forth biosocial theory of antisocial conduct without explicitly claiming to do so. In such a palatable form, criminologists embraced a biosocial theory without realizing they had done so.

Thus, Moffitt helped to draw attention to biological processes without alienating criminologists in two ways: First, she snuck in biological criminology into the field by attributing biological deficits to external social sources, such as exposure to environmentally based teratogens (e.g., mothers taking drugs). This linked aspects of the social environment to biological functioning. Second, she used the language of “neuropsychological deficits” to describe brain dysfunction rather than the more tainted language of biological pathology or heritability. We suspect this was appealing to criminologists because it unwittingly disarmed them from their traditional distrust of biological theorizing. But let us make no mistake about Moffitt’s work: It is fundamentally a biosocial theory because it links a biological deficit to environmental reactions that then ensnare a child in a pathway of antisocial cumulative continuity. The wealth of research on her theory, especially on the neuropsychological deficits (e.g., measured through mothers’ smoking in pregnancy), made inquiry into biological factors more acceptable.

Second, criminology does not exist in a vacuum. The biological revolution is widespread and has swept across many fields of study. Importantly, advances in behavioral genetics and brain imaging have created the technology to move beyond the crude biology of Lombroso into a 21st century biology that is highly sophisticated. The linkage of advances in biology to the possibility of curing previously incurable diseases has displayed how biological thinking can produce social good. The potential to apply these new ideas and technology to criminology is thus an exciting development.

Third, we are now in the second decade of the 21st century and not in the 1960s. As the social context changes, so too do ideas about crime (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2011). The professional ideology of criminologists has not vanished—indeed, it is powerful in many ways—but its hegemony becomes less complete (Cullen & Gendreau, 2001). Criminologists are now increasingly trained in separate criminology/criminal justice programs and are drawn from a variety of disciplines with diverse assumptions about human nature (e.g., economics). As time marches onward, the 1960s is increasingly distant, and thus the number of scholars with ties to that era is declining rapidly. As such, the ideological space to explore new ideas may be increasing.

Fourth, as Kuhn (1970) has shown, scientific paradigms emerge and flourish if they are able to provide a plethora of new “puzzles” that can be solved and thus result in publications (see also Cole, 1975). The biosocial paradigm meets this criterion. Thus, even in the face of antagonistic reviewers, biosocial research is fresh and is capable of challenging or specifying assumed social causes of crime. Accordingly, it is able to offer rich opportunities for publication. If nothing else, self-interest might lead increasing numbers of younger, if not older, criminologists into the biosocial paradigm. In this context, we turn next to the issue of the nature and potential importance of biosocial criminology.

What Is Biosocial Criminology?

Biosocial criminology is more a paradigm than a theory. By this we mean that biosocial criminology encompasses a broad range of biologically informed perspectives, research methods, and statistical tools. It brings the research skills of a diverse array of scholars under one general umbrella to understand how biological processes matter in the etiology of antisocial and criminal behavior, how these processes shape and are shaped by environmental features, and how individuals develop over the life-course. Because biosocial criminology draws on research findings and methodologies from a broad array of fields, it seeks consilience rather than retaining allegiance to disciplinary boundaries. Put simply, biosocial criminology is inherently multidisciplinary and integrative, and it prioritizes discovery over reifying disciplinary traditions.

There are three broad components to biosocial criminology: biological variation, ontogeny, and interaction. First, biological variation is an evolutionary product. Due to varying selection pressures over evolutionary history human beings have acquired a range of traits that vary, sometimes substantially, between individuals, between groups of individuals, and between the sexes. Genetic variation is a key concept in Darwinian evolution. Biosocial criminologists are interested in genetic variation and tend to focus on traits related to crime and antisocial behavior to understand how much variance in a specific trait can be attributed to genetic and environmental sources. Insights from behavioral genetics have proven invaluable in this regard and show, quite consistently, that antisocial behavior is modestly to highly heritable (Mason & Frick, 1994), that unique environmental experiences are also important, but that shared environmental influences have little to no influence (Rutter, 2006).

Meta-analytic analyses of heritability studies, for example, show that antisocial behavior is roughly 50% heritable, whereas specific studies find that antisocial behavior can range from 40 to 85% heritable (Arseneault et al., 2003). Traits related to crime, moreover, have also been found to be modestly to highly heritable. Behavioral genetic studies on self-control and other executive functions often reveal substantial levels of heritability, ranging from 80 to 100% (Friedman et al., 2008). More recently, behavioral genetic studies have investigated callous/unemotional traits, or traits that appear to distinguish particularly violent offenders from nonviolent offenders. These studies also find substantial heritability in these traits (Viding, Blair, Moffitt, & Plomin, 2005). However, “genetic influences are strongest,” note Mofffit, Ross, and Raine (2011, p. 60) in a recent review of biological factors related to crime, for offenders who have a “criminal career that begins at an early age and is persistent, severe, and involves callous unemotional symptoms, such as a lack of remorse.”

Second, ontogeny reflects the origins and life-course development of an individual organism. Biosocial criminologists are concerned with ontogenic development because much human development is preprogramed and emerges in a somewhat orderly and predictive fashion, sometimes with only limited environmental input. Ontogenic development also encompasses important developmental shifts as individual’s age, as individual’s acquire physical strength, mobility, verbal communication, and as individuals begin to interact on their immediate environment. Much ontogenic development appears to be closely linked to continued maturation of the brain and central nervous system throughout the life-course.

One of the key differences between modern humans and all other animals, for example, is that humans acquired the ability to communicate orally. Humans appear to be hard wired for language acquisition, which occurs on a well-known timetable. Delays in language acquisition and deficits in expressive and receptive vocabulary have been consistently linked to aggressive behavior (Dionne, Boivin, Tremblay, Laplante, & Perusse, 2003) and to problems in self-regulation (Beaver, DeLisi, Vaughn, Wright, & Boutwell, 2008). Delays in normative developmental sequences provide researchers with opportunities to better understand how developmental dysfunction is linked to the onset of problem behaviors, but, more importantly, this information also provides targets for treatment and intervention.

Third, and finally, much human development occurs in interaction with others across varying social contexts. Interactions between humans set the stage for social learning but, as research tells us, humans are not simply passive observers in their own lives. From infancy, humans begin to operate on their immediate social environment—that is, their traits, behaviors, and propensities emerge and interact with the behaviors and personalities of others. Biosocial criminology focuses attention on the interpersonal relationships of individuals because relationships bring together in one setting sometimes potent environmental factors and preexisting genetic propensities. Studies that examine how genes correlate and interact with environmental variables have proven insightful, if not invaluable, because they show (a) that environmental exposure to certain risk factors is not always random but is instead produced by individual genetic propensities, (b) that genes frequently condition the effects of environmental risk factors, and (c) that many environmental variables appear to also be genetically influenced (Reiss, Neiderhiser, Hetherington, & Plomin, 2000; Rutter, 2008).

It is nonetheless worth emphasizing that biosocial criminology includes a strong focus on environmental factors related to crime. Critics of biology appear to fear that biological findings will somehow squeeze out environmental influences or that a focus on biology will inevitably lead to biological reductionism. The research evidence shows, however, that this premise is entirely wrong. Biosocial studies help to better specify not only which environmental risk factors are important, but also why specific children, for example, are harmed by specific environmental risk factors although other children, exposed to the same risk factors, remain resilient. This level of specificity has never been achieved before in criminology.

Although working within these three broad areas—biological variation, ontogenic development, and social interactions—biosocial criminologists draw on a range of research methodologies. Behavioral genetic analyses are conducted on genetically informed samples using complex statistical methods; candidate gene studies rely on genotyping technology; physiological studies, such as skin conductivity tests, rely on medical technology; and brain imaging studies rely on highly advanced neuroscientific technology. Each technology brings with it a different type of insight and a host of complex measurement issues. Obviously, given the complexity and costs associated with these technologies, biosocial criminologists often have to collaborate with other scholars or, more efficiently, they simply draw on the work of other disciplines. To be able to understand at a level sufficient to conduct academic research, the nuances of these methodologies require a different type of criminological training. Biosocial criminologists need to be versed in traditional theories of crime, but they also need to be well versed in human development, molecular genetics, Darwinian evolution, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and physiology. This is a tall order.

The Power of the Biological Revolution and the Future of Criminology

Biosocial criminology has emerged as a powerful way of organizing scientific findings into a broader, biologically informed criminology. The paradigm appears to be gaining momentum: More biologically informed studies of crime have been published in traditional criminology journals; more books on the topic have been published in the past few years than ever before; more students have been trained in the area; and more conference panels have been produced at major academic conferences. More importantly, at least from our perspective, scholars have learned that discussing biology in the context of crime does not automatically lead to career death or to disciplinary banishment. In a fortunate turn of events, even traditional sociologists have started to incorporate biological principles and variables into their studies. For example, Ronald Simons, a highly respected sociological criminologist and his colleagues (Simons et al., 2011) recently published a biologically informed study in the American Sociological Review—the top journal in sociology. We believe this reflects the power of the biological revolution, which is not to be found in the technologies that people so frequently point to in awe, but in the power it possess to inform a broad domain of scientific disciplines—even the social sciences (DeLisi, Wright, Vaughn, & Beaver, 2009).

For biosocial criminology to expand, however, criminology will have to change. First, most PhD granting programs in criminology place a heavy emphasis on criminological theory. PhD students are forced to understand the minutia of theories, many of which many are useless to our understanding of crime, in favor of understanding empirical findings from a diverse range of fields. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field, yet most of the training students receive is based only in sociology. For students to become biosocial criminologists, however, they need training in fields outside of traditional criminology. Although traditional criminology has much to offer, biosocial criminologists require more than an understanding of four social bonds.

Second, as we have hopefully made clear, the subjugation of science to disciplinary “sacred values” should be abandoned. Criminology touches on politically difficult subjects, such as the intersection of race, behavior, and justice. Too frequently, however, discussions of these subjects are couched in ways designed to recognize and to protect the field’s sacred values. If criminology is to advance as a science, it must abandon its political sensitivities in favor of an emphasis on the sometimes politically inconvenient findings that emerge from science. Biosocial criminology obviously threatens the sacred values of the discipline, but it can replace those values with others—such as scientific honesty, scientific objectivity, and scientific discourse unencumbered by political considerations.

Although biosocial criminology offers much to the study of crime and criminals, it remains to be seen if it will continue to expand and to be more broadly accepted. We believe the field is presented with at least three choices: First, criminology can do nothing. It can simply relegate biosocial criminology to yet another theoretical perspective, much like it has with dozens of other perspectives. We, of course, believe this would be a mistake as the empirical evidence emerging out of biosocial criminology is consistent, insightful, useful, and sometimes even remarkable.

Second, and more importantly, criminology can choose to reinforce its sacred values and continue to try to isolate biosocial criminology as a fringe movement. As we have pointed out, biosocial criminology is multidisciplinary and emphasizes science over ideology. This conflicts with powerful disciplinary views that see criminology as a singular discipline, or as a mere extension of sociology. This also conflicts with views that see the social sciences as places for social advocacy or that want to transform the field into a “public criminology” where “science” is used to advance the scriptures of “social justice” (Deflem, 2005). Indeed, the academic forces that would silence biosocial criminology appear to be on the move. In a recent article, Walby and Carrier (2010b) take aim at biosocial criminology and biosocial criminologists. In the subcultural language of the postmodern community, Walby and Carrier (2010b) equate the work of modern biosocial criminologist to a mere focus on “bios,” or body parts, and to “bodily economies.” Accordingly, their

approach treats the bodily economies of ‘criminal man’ as cultural artifacts visualized, captured, constructed, and analyzed by criminologists. The concept ‘bodily economies’ refers to a nonessentialized notion of the body, one that is always in flux. Here, it is mobilized to focus on the ways in which criminologists have isolated and visualized particular parts, layers and sections of the body, and granted these elements of human bodily economies causal powers in claims about past, actual and future behavior of ‘criminal man.’ (p. 262)

Of course, we strongly disagree with the characterizations of biosocial criminology made by Walby and Carrier (2010b), but that is not the point. Instead, Walby and Carrier offer a view of criminology that is in competition with ours. Their view, held to varying degrees by a diverse set of criminologists, is directly opposed to science. It substitutes sophistication in language for clarity of thought, replaces theoretical insights with ideological subterfuge, and it elevates political considerations over empirical substance. Whereas Walby and Carrier (2010b) refer to biosocial criminology as a “nightmare,” we believe just the opposite is true: The rejection of science is the antipathy of reasoned scholarship.

We also wish to return to a point made earlier in this article, which further rejects the notion that biological knowledge is a nightmare fraught with inherently dangerous consequences. We are persuaded that rigorous science—including biosocial criminology—is integral to the more effective and humane treatment of offenders and those on an antisocial pathway into crime (Cullen, 2005; Farrington & Welsh, 2007). Critics often commit the fallacy of “genetic fatalism,” which is to assume that a biological or biosocial cause of crime consigns a person to a life in crime (see Alpert & Beckwith, 1993). In large part, this is why these critics believe that biological thinking is dangerous; if offenders cannot be changed, then the only option is incapacitation or some other repressive intervention. In reality, however, the behavioral effects of biological factors are not immutable—any more than poor eyesight cannot be altered through eyeglasses. Such effects can be addressed through medication and through a range of treatment modalities (e.g., cognitive-behavioral programs). And once understood, they can be prevented through a range of early interventions, such as the nurse-home visitation program that seeks to help pregnant at risk mothers engage in healthy practices that spare their children neuropsychological deficits (Olds, 2007). What is misguided, then, is to allow ideology—however well intentioned—to blind us to the objective causes of waywardness and, in turn, to stop us from developing interventions targeted to reverse the effects of biosocial risk factors.

Third, criminology can join the 21st century, it can embrace contemporary scientific technologies and methodologies, and it can usher in a criminology that substantively advances our understanding of serious, chronic, criminal behavior. Elevating a biosocial criminology will attach our field to other, more technically advanced, disciplines. It will elevate the status of our field with funding agencies, such as the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health. Moreover, as noted, it will advance the cause of science and could, ultimately, lead to better insights about how social processes damage and harm those most at risk. Elevating biosocial criminology will also open criminology up to the study of the complete life-course, from infancy through adulthood, instead of retaining our focus on adolescence. It can push criminologists to abandon their obsessive focus on theory in favor of empirical discoveries that have real policy and treatment ramifications.

In the end, a vibrant, evolving, increasingly sophisticated biosocial criminology has the capacity to destroy the ideological walls that surround criminology’s sacred values. These walls may be starting to crumble, but only time will tell if they fall. It is our hope that readers of this special issue will see the value of a biosocial criminology and will, eventually, help to destroy the sacred values that “bind and blind” criminology.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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