Fishbein, Diana H.: Biosocial Theory

Kevin M. Beaver

The field of criminology has been, and continues to be, dominated by environmental explanations of crime and delinquency. What this means is that criminological theories attempt to explain the development of antisocial behaviors by focusing on environmental factors, such as parents, peers, neighborhoods, subcultures, and virtually every other imaginable social variable. The most well-known criminological theories, such as social learning theory, social disorganization theory, strain theory, and social bonding theory, explain criminal behavior solely through environmental factors. At the same time, the possibility that biological factors could be implicated in the etiology of crime has not been explored by most contemporary criminologists. Criminologists, in general, have been vehemently opposed to research that examines the biological underpinnings to offending behaviors. There are two overarching reasons why criminologists oppose biological research. First, most criminologists have been trained as sociologists. That necessarily means that they are quite familiar with the social factors that ...

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