Hostname: page-component-76c49bb84f-h2dfl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-12T13:20:42.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dysgenic fertility for criminal behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Richard Lynn
Richard Lynn
Affiliation:
University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A sample of 104 British parents with criminal convictions had an average fertility of 3·91 children as compared with 2·21 for the general population. The result suggests that fertility for criminal behaviour is dysgenic involving an increase in the genes underlying criminal behaviour in the population.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 405 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Cloninger, C. R., Christiansen, K. O., Reich, T. & Gottesman, I. (1978) Implications of sex differences in the prevalence of antisocial personality, alcoholism and criminality for familial transmission. Archs gen. Psychiat. 35, 941.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coleman, D. & Salt, J. (1992) The British Population. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Crowe, R. (1975) An adoptive study of psychopathy. In: Genetic Research in Psychaiatry. Edited by Fieve, R., Rosenthal, D. & Britt., H.Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. & Gudjonsson, G. H. (1989) The Causes and Cures of Criminality. Plenum, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrington, D. P. & West, D. J. (1990) The Cambridge Study In Delinquent Development: a long term follow up of 411 London males. In: Criminality: Personality, Behaviour and Life History. Edited by Kerner, H. J. & Kaiser, G.. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Galton, F. (1909) Essays on Eugenics. Eugenics Society, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchings, B. & Mednick, S. (1977) Criminality in adoptees and their adoptive and biological parents: a pilot study. In: Biosocial Bases of Criminal Behaviour. Edited by Mednick, S. & Christiansen, K. O.. Gardner Press, New York.Google Scholar
Maguire, M. (1994) Crime, statistics, patterns and trends. In: The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Edited by Maguire, M., Morgan, R. & Reiner, R.. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Retherford, R. D. & Sewell, W. H. (1988) Intelligence and family size reconsidered. Social Biol. 35, 1.Google ScholarPubMed
Van Court, M. & Bean, F. D. (1985) Intelligence and fertility in the United States, 1912–1982. Intelligence, 9, 23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vining, D. R. (1982) On the possibility of the re-emergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials. Intelligence, 6, 241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar