A META-ANALYSIS OF THE GENE-CRIME RELATIONSHIP*

This investigation used the statistical technique of meta-analysis to probe the putative association between heredity and crime. The data for this study were 54 effect sizes obtained from 38 family, twin, and adoption studies on crime. In addition to the overall gene-crime relationship, the potential moderating effects of gender, sample nationality, date of publication, and quality of the research design were also investigated. It was predicted that heredity and crime would not coincide, although subsequent analyses disclosed a low-moderate correlation between these two variables (mean unweighted phi coefficient = .25; mean weighted phi coefficient = .09). Further analysis of these data revealed that better designed and more recently published studies provided less support for the gene-crime hypothesis than more poorly designed and earlier published investigations. The individual strengths and weaknesses of the meta-analytic technique relative to this effort to achieve insight into the gene-crime relationship are discussed.