Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring both biological factors and environmental factors. Since the mapping of the human genome, scientists have been able to study the biosocial causes of human behaviour with the greatest specificity. After decades of almost exclusive sociological focus, criminology has undergone a paradigm shift where the field is more interdisciplinary and this book combines perspectives from criminology and sociology with contributions from fields such as genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology. The Routledge International Handbook of Biosocial Criminology is the largest and most comprehensive work of its kind, and is organized into five sections that collectively span the terrain of biosocial research on antisocial behavior. Bringing together leading experts from around the world, this book considers the criminological, genetic and neuropsychological foundations of offending, as well as the legal and criminal justice applications of biosocial criminological theory. The handbook is essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners from across the social, behavioural, and natural sciences who are engaged in the study of antisocial behaviour.

This book takes a look at female offenders through a biosocial lens. The gender ratio problem (why always and everywhere males commit more criminal acts than females) has been called the single most important fact that criminology theories must be able to explain. Feminist criminology has attempted to do this for decades without success because it has relied on conceptual and theoretical tools from a single discipline -- sociology. A number of famous criminologists (e.g., Travis Hirschi) have concluded that an explanation of gender differences in crime from the sociological perspective may not be possible because it excludes biological sex, the powerful underlying base of gender. It is the contention of this book that unless feminist criminology comes to grips with the evolutionary and neurological bases of fundamental gender difference, the field will continue to flounder without compass. Other influential criminologists, such as Francis Cullen, have concluded that the biosocial paradigm is the paradigm of the 21st century. This book looks at feminist criminology in general and attempts to explain its main concerns from a biosocial perspective while showing that there is nothing illiberal about it and that biology can be a very powerful ally for criminology. The book ranges across disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, behavioral and molecular genetics, the neurosciences, and evolutionary biology to attempt to answer the gender ratio problem. Our efforts are guided by Niko Tinbergen's famous four questions about major behavior patterns: adaptive function, phylogenic history, development, and causation. It is time to apply this exciting and robust paradigm -- one that avers that any trait or behavior of any living thing is always the result of biological factors interacting with environmental factors -- to the most vexing issues of feminist criminology. Changes to the new edition include the integration of a larger body of empirical research and expansion of the topics (such as adding information on gender differences in brain regions) as well as an added chapter that focuses on the explanation of intimate partner violence and rape.

The Nurture Versus Biosocial Debate in Criminology: On the Origins of Criminal Behavior and Criminality takes a contemporary approach to address the sociological and the biological positions of human behavior by allowing preeminent scholars in criminology to speak to the effects of each on a range of topics. Kevin M. Beaver, J.C. Barnes, and Brian B. Boutwell aim to facilitate an open and honest debate between the more traditional criminologists who focus primarily on environmental factors and contemporary biosocial criminologists who examine the interplay between biology/genetics and environmental factors.

Proceedings of a NATO ASI held in Rhodes, Greece, May 12-21, 1996

Provocative and timely: a pioneering neurocriminologist introduces the latest biological research into the causes of--and potential cures for--criminal behavior. With an 8-page full-color insert, and black-and-white illustrations throughout.