ABSTRACT
Genes play an important role in shaping human traits. Reams of research now exist pointing to the influence of genes on a wide spectrum of traits and behaviors, ranging from susceptibility to mental disorders (Cannon et al., 1998; Hicks et al., 2004) and intelligence (Devlin et al., 1997) to whether an individual is more likely to turn out to vote in the next political election (Fowler et al., 2008). In fact, virtually every single behavior and trait studied to date has been shown to be under at least some genetic influence (Plomin et al., 2008). Thus, it comes as no surprise that genes are believed to explain at least a portion of the variation observed across individuals with respect to antisocial behavior and crime.
