ABSTRACT
There has been substantial interest among sociobiological researchers in the USA in recent years in antisocial behavior that is seen to emerge early in childhood in some individuals and persists into adulthood. Contributing to that research interest has been the growing evidence that 5-6 per cent of the most persistent offenders are responsible for 50 per cent of known crimes (Aguilar et al., 2000) and that these individuals are difficult – if not impossible – to rehabilitate and most likely to become recidivists (Kazdin, 1987; Moffitt, 1993a). It is argued that identifying risk factors of early antisocial behavior has important implications for improving both intervention and prevention.
