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Sex Offenders Could Be Influenced By Genes
Arcana
Posts: 37,521 Forum Member
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Genes passed down within families could significantly increase the risk of men committing sexual offences, according to groundbreaking research.
The first study of its kind has shown that men are four times more likely to carry out a sex crime if their father has been convicted for a similar offence.
The risk jumps to five times if men have a brother who has been convicted, the study of more than 21,000 sexual offenders shows.
Genetic factors account for 40-50% of the risk, with the remainder coming from the environment that men grow up in and other medical or social influences, according to results in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
http://news.sky.com/story/1461268/sex-offenders-could-be-influenced-by-genes
BBC version of the same story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32221589
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Genetic link to crime has been avoided because people don't really want to be seen in the same vein as Lombroso back in the late nineteenth century.
But it is becoming more and more evident there IS a genetic link but I think that the predisposition is likely to become 'active' through environmental factors.
But wouldn't this mean that it would go across families so relatives of sex offenders would also have an increased chance of sex offenfing
Anecdotally, I can say this is the case. For example, recently I worked with a juvenile who had sexually offended. It transpired that both his father and his uncle had also offended sexually (although in different ways).
It's been known that this type of offence can be found in families (look at Fred and Rose West for extreme examples!) but it had been thought this was learned behaviour - a kind of 'normalisation' of unacceptable behaviour that went on throughout a person's childhood.
Yeah. Clearly you are unaware how genetics work....
Yes, Genes are passed on through the parents, if they can't breed then they can't pass on their genes.
or sexual offences.
what about non offending siblings? do them too as a preventative measure?
We are discussing Genetic links.
to sexual offending, you can`t have the former without the latter.
Er yes. But those links aren't always parental. Even the research suggests that SIBLINGS rather than parent/child show a greater level of offending.
What are you proposing? Sterilise all members of certain families - just in case?
And what about females (who are likely to carry the gene but not be offenders?)
From the link:
Edit: Forgot to say that the above quote is from the Sky News link.
The articles don't explain anything about the genes themselves, or even describe them. They don't tell us whether the genes (or configuration of genes) are the same among unrelated sex offenders. Nor do they tell us whether non offenders are in possession of these genes.
some people naturally assume that only adults are on the SOR......... nope you've a large number of teenagers on there too - for a VERY GOOD reason.....
also there are a large number of offenders out there that have never been caught, and so therefore are not on the SOR - they are the ones who I believe should be feared..... their crimes only come to light after they have died......
no one should excuse why people offend but to say "oh, they've got that particular gene, let's kill them" is a bit silly...... afterall how would YOU feel if you turned out to have that particular gene (even though you were NOT AWARE)??????
Fred and Rosemary West were husband and wife. There was no genetic link between them.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, none of the West's children have committed any sexual offences. Please correct me on this I'm wrong on that one but I'm pretty sure at this time that they haven't.
Fred West's father was violent and into incest and bestiality. He advised his son that it was okay to commit sexual offences as long as you don't get caught. Rose West's father abused her sexually for years. He was still having sex with her when she was married to Fred and it's likely that Heather West was his daughter. One of the West children (Stephen?) was found guilty of abusing a 14 year old girl as well.
Simply put, this is a method mostly used in finance and money markets for estimating how stock is likely to perform, but a variant of it can be used in scientific research too.
It is used by extrapolating the data from a variety of sources and analysing them to produce a balance of probability.
I'm always wary of Beta Analyses because they are wide open to selective bias. The phrase "Lies, damned lies and statistics" doesn't quite go away. It would be interesting to have more detail of their data sources.
It's also useful to know who sponsored this research, and to what purposes it will be put. Beware the "research" that may have an agenda behind it.
I don't know enough about this particular study to be able to say whether or not it is valid. Professional journals are usually a good source of peer review and it would be interesting to read what the learned academics who specialise in this field make of it.
Thanks for that, Namira. I wasn't aware of the case involving Stephen.
Regarding Fred and Rosemary, Anais's post came across in a skewed way, suggesting that they were biologically related which, as I pointed out, they weren't.
Thanks for putting me right on Stephen though.
Regards
Yes this is true but i'm not suprised he's messed up when he was being made to have sex with his mother every night.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-329497/Fred-Wests-son-jailed-age-sex.html
If the relationship between inherited gene and behaviour really is a significantly causal one it shouldn't be too difficult to do.