Book Review: BIOLOG Y AND CRIME. By C. Ray Jeffery (Ed.) Sage Research Progress Series in Criminology, Vol. 10. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1979, pp. 160

• DOI: 10.1177/009385488100800110
• Author: Anthony R. Mawson
• Date: 01 March 1981
• Published date: 01 March 1981
• Subject Matter: Articles

125

BOOK

REVIEW

BIOLOG Y

AND

CRIME.

By

C.

Ray

Jeffery

(Ed.)

Sage

Research

Progress

Series

in

Criminology,

Vol.

10.

Beverly

Hills:

Sage

Publica-

tions,

1979,

pp.

160.

Most

of

the

papers

comprising

this

anthology

were

delivered

at

the

1978

Annual

Meeting

of

the

American

Society

of

Criminology.

Published

by

Sage

in

cooperation

with

the

Society,

the

book

at

once

helps

to

legitimize

the

topic

of

biology

and

crime

within

the

discipline

and

marks

in

a

significant

way

the

revival

of

interest

in

psychobiological

factors.

It

is

also,

no

doubt,

something

of

a

personal

triumph

for

its

editor,

C.

Ray

Jeffery,

immediate

past

President

of

the

ASC,

and

an

outspoken

but

lonely

advocate

of

interdisciplinary

research

for

many

years.

With

the

appearance

of

this

volume,

and

Len

Hippchen’s

anthology

two

years

ago

(Ecological-Biochemical

Approaches

to

Treatment

of Delinquents

and

Criminals,

Van

Nostrand),

it

is

no

longer

acceptable

to

deride

biosocial

criminology

as

&dquo;neo-Lombrosian&dquo;

or

to

review,

only

to

dismiss,

the

literature

in

the

space

of

an

article

or

chapter.

This

literature

has

grown

so

quickly

and

become

so

complex

that

anyone

attempting

to

update

Shah

and

Roth’s

1974

review

(in

Daniel

Glaser,

(Ed.),

Handbook

of

Criminology,

Skokie,

IL:

Rand

McNally),

would

be

hard-pressed

to

undertake

it.

Not

only

has

the

range

of

possible

nonsocial

determinants

of

crime

expanded

enor-

mously

since

the

1960s

(to

the

point

where

it

now

includes

genetic

influences,

food

additives,

nutritutional

deficiencies,

hormonal

and

neurotransmitter

influences,

physical

anomalies,

brain

tumors

and

infections,

metal

toxicity,

and

many

other

factors),

but

there

has

been

an

increasing

recognition

that

serious

juvenile

delinquency

overlaps

con-

siderably

with

such

phenomena

as

learning

disability,

hyperactivity,

the

addictions,

perceptual

and

sensorimotor

disorders,

metabolic

disorders,

allergies,

and

schizophrenia.

Biology

and

Crime

opens

with

some

pithy

remarks

by

Jeffery

on

recent

trends

towards

conservatism

in

criminology

and

on

the

continu-

ing

hostility

towards

psychobiological

research.

As

an

alternative

to

current

paradigms,

he

proposes

a

&dquo;biosocial

interdisciplinary

model

which

argues

that

behavior

can

be

scientifically

understood

and

crime