ABSTRACT
The field of criminology has gone through several swings from one theoretical orientation to another. It is difficult to cleanly assess the empirical status of biosocial criminology as the approach is relatively new and encompasses so many different types of studies. Overall, biosocial criminology has quite unequivocally provided evidence that personality traits as well as behaviors that are often correlated with criminal behavior are the result of both the environment and genetics. Biosocial criminology appears to hold much promise for future research and policy. The approach capitalizes not only on the knowledge of sociology and other social sciences but also on the quickly advancing fields of biology, chemistry, genetics, and other “hard” sciences. In 2016, an entire section of the journal Criminology and Public Policy tackled the question of how biosocial criminology can advance effective policy and programming.
