Risky individuals and the politics of genetic research into aggressiveness and violence

Bioethics

Volumn 22, Issue 9, 2008, Pages 509-518

  Pieri, Elisa ^a,b   Levitt, Mairi ^a  

^a LANCASTER UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Behavioural genetics; Biopolitics; Criminal justice; Forensics; Risk; Security; Surveillance

Indexed keywords

AGGRESSION; BEHAVIOR GENETICS; CRIMINAL LAW; ETHICS; FEMALE; GENETIC PREDISPOSITION; GENETICS; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MALE; METHODOLOGY; POLITICS; REVIEW; RISK; SOCIAL CONTROL; VIOLENCE;

AGGRESSION; CRIMINAL LAW; FEMALE; GENETIC PREDISPOSITION TO DISEASE; GENETIC RESEARCH; GENETICS, BEHAVIORAL; HUMANS; MALE; POLITICS; RISK; SOCIAL CONTROL, FORMAL; VIOLENCE;

EID: 54049086589     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: 14678519     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00694.x     Document Type: Review

References (55)

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15. This work was part of the programme of the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen) and the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is gratefully acknowledged. The project ran from May 2006 to Dec 2007. For further information please see E. Pieri & M. Levitt. 2007. Genetics and Crime: Policy and Practice Impacts of Behavioural Genetics Research into Aggressiveness and Violence. ESRC End of Project Report. Lancaster: CESAGen. Available on http://www.cesagen.lancs.ac.uk/research/ other%20cesagen/criminalgenes.htm.
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19. Most focus group participants presented a complex picture of interactions between 'external' and 'internal' factors that may contribute to aggressive and violent responses. The 'internal' factors ranged from mental health to emotional and psychological difficulties in processing stress, fear and anger, and childhood traumas. The 'external' factors included relational factors within the family, peer groups and school, as well as socio-political determinants, from living in a particular neighbourhood, to large-scale unemployment in the North West in the 1980s. The growing consumption of drugs and alcohol, and a more general feeling of a loss of a sense of community were other factors. Participants lamented a loss of respect for others and property, but argued that there had also been an increase in intolerance towards low-level nuisance behaviours now defined as anti-social (E. Pieri & M. Levitt, 2006. Wrestling with Behavioural Genetics. op. cit. note 14, pp. 12-30).
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