Biosocial Perspective on Young Adult Criminality

• In Event: Poster Session I

Abstract

Measures of young adult criminality have commonly found several environmental influences such as parenting and education, but fewer studies have examined young adult criminality through biosocial lenses. The interaction of environmental and genetic variables appears to be a more precise explanation of young adult criminality. Using a sample of adolescent males drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, this poster examines whether parenting interacts with genotype to shape school outcomes, which then subsequently shape criminal outcomes into young adulthood. In this study, school outcomes are treated as a mediating variable. Results of negative binomial regression and ordinary least squares reveal that when there was poor parenting combined with children who attained certain genes and school outcomes were poor, this subsequently best predicted criminality in young adulthood.

Authors

• Karli Province, University of Memphis

• Stephen Watts, University of Memphis