Abstract from the study:

http://m.ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/05/ije.dyv029.abstract

I did hear about this yesterday i think that its a bit of a long bow to draw......can the same be applyed to killers?

I believe the same idea can be applied to any crime. However I think the issue is worth more study for sex offenders than murderers. The reason being is that there are relatively few serial killers, and most other murders are heat of passion crimes ie (catch a spouse cheating). You don't need a biological explanation for heat of passion crimes or hang murders, or DUI negligent homocide. Though I would be fascinated to learn about the biological makeup of serial killers to see if there are any other genetic markers besides sociopathy.

Personally I think this is a bunch of bull. It has long been known that family abuse is a pattern that continues but I am not sure whether that is genetics or learned patterns. It has also been shown that many times boys that see their fathers beat their mothers will often grow up to be wife beaters as well but that is becasue they is how they learned to handle situations in relationships. To me this is just an attempt to move sex offenses from a psychological issue to a physical one and then guess what we are right back at square one with the idea that "sex offenders can not be cured." Today, the numbers of sex offenders are growing in leaps and bounds and it has nothing to do with genetics - it has to do with the laws and the fact that technology has run rampant.

I don't think it's genetic. I do think it may be the accepted "culture" in some families. My SIL's family seems to be one of those. Her son and nephew both have been or are in jail for sex crimes against children and there's all sorts of whispers and rumors about her brother.(including a whole blow-up right on FB) It would explain a lot if he has. Unfortunately, she's married to my husband's brother and their family issues spilled over into our family by way of false accusations.
Sadly, I knew none of this, or I would have kept my step-daughter far away. Here again, is an instance where the registry would not have helped because at that point none of them were on it, and, they all go by famiy nicknames anyway

I have always believed that genetics play a bigger part in the development of disease states and perhaps behavior than most people realize.

I don't think genetics necessarily cause a person to commit a sex crime or any violent crime, but I have an idea that the type of thinking going on in a person's mind when they do commit these crimes may have a genetic basis.

We know that some people just seem to possess addictive personalities and are more prone to drug or substance abuse, so it would not surprise me to find that people who commit sex offenses are much the same way.

There is a genetic link to alcoholism and it seems to be passed through the family. No, the gene does not cause alcoholism but it makes a person with the gene more predisposed to become heavy drinkers.

But I still think environmental factors play a bigger role than genetics in things like sex offenses or drug addiction.

rewdiazepam

Yeah completely agree Rew. Like the researcher said, the best guess is it is between 20-50% of the issue, the rest being nurture and how you were raised.

What I want to see is them do a random sample of 2,000 people's (1,000 male, 1,000 female) DNA and see what percentage of the general population have these markers. Without that information this study isn't complete in my opinion.

I think people's environment contribute more to behaviour than genetics. Families with crime tend to have more family members to commit crime. Ithink it just seems normal when other family members have association with tbe legal system...

I agree free, I think nurture is more powerful than nature. At the same time I think genetics can and do play some part in all that we do.

I think a good example (in my case) is alcoholism. I come from a long line of alcoholics and I probably drink too much as well as other relatives. Especially so since all the stress of the last few years of legalities. Both genetics and behaviors contribute to this.

I suppose if you come from a family that commits sex crimes could teach you that that's "normal" but I don't see the genetic connection. But we are just discovering the "Gay" genetics so there must be more to learn....

I have another theory being a "Baby Boomer". We who grew up in the age of "If it feels good ... "Do it!" Don't we bear some responsibility for the current sexual promiscuity? This was the age of where "Streaking" was funny. Also most of our parents and grand parents would be on the registry according to today's standards. I know my parents would have been! Plus we flood the airwaves with "Sex sells..." advertising pushing the edge to barely the legal limit of possibility.

Why then are we surprised when people respond? We've conditioned them! This isn't "Genetics" it's rouge learning!

Yeah that's why I think the study is incomplete until they do a control group to show how prevalent this supposed sex offender gene is in the general (assumed non-offending) public. 2,000 people would be a good sample size to see how prevalent this would be in the general population. Without that control group it is not complete.

These are very high-powered research institutes. I'm sure this study was carried out extremely well. However, things have changed since the original hypothesis was stated. There's a much greater understanding now about how genetics and the environment interact. While this may be a good study, the basis of it is flawed simply because it was probably began about 10 years ago when the beliefs and knowledge about the "primacy" of genetics to determine behavior was less advanced.

Hmm, maybe you are right peek. I just want to put this study in context so I know how powerful the genetic marker they found is. Maybe they have a good control group but the author of the cnn article didn't think it was necessary to include it.

Sorry, I sort of jumped into this without reading the article. I still haven't read the whole thing, but we have to be careful with this one. Its a 37 year long study of Swedish men. If you look at the full research article, there was a good control group.

The definition of sex offense has changed a lot in 37 years. CP and Romeo and Juliets are not part of there schema. I think was they are looking at is the propensity of people to be sexually aggression and whether or not this runs in families. Their methodology was to tease out the environmental from the heritable influences. What they found was evidence that sexual aggression can be an inherited trait. That is it. That is what they found out.

The danger of these two stories is the broad use of the term "sex offense". In this case, being convicted of a sex crime was used only as evidence of sexually aggressive behavior. I think it was irresponsible for both articles to use the term sex offense, because sex offense is not a behavioral term. It is a social and criminal science term. Cultures decide on boundaries of sexually acceptable behaviors and make decisions about what is OK and what is offensive. That is not behavior. Aggression is behavior and that is what the study actually looked at.

So, take this one with a grain of salt, folks. The propensity to be sexually aggressive may be inherited but being a sex offender IS NOT.