PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Brian B. Boutwell AU - Eric Connolly TI - On the Heritability of Criminal Justice Processing AID - 10.1101/107748 DP - 2017 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 107748 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/15/107748.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/15/107748.full AB - An impressive number of researchers have devoted a great amount of effort toward examining various predictors of criminal justice processing outcomes. Indeed, a vast amount of research has examined various individual- and aggregate-level predictors of arrests, incarceration, and sentencing decisions. To this point, much less attention has been devoted toward uncovering the relative contribution of genetic effects on variation in criminal justice processing. As a result, the current study employs a behavioral genetic design in order to help fill this void in the existing literature. Using twin data from a nationally representative sample of youth, the current study produced evidence suggesting that genetic factors accounted for at least a portion of variance in risk for incarceration among female twins and probation among male twins. Shared and nonshared environmental influences accounted for the variance in risk for arrest among both female and male twins, probation among female twins, and incarceration among male twins. Ultimately, then, it appears that risk for contact with the criminal justice system and criminal justice processing is structured by a combination of factors beyond shared cultural and neighborhood environments, and appear to also include genetic factors as well. Moving forward, continuing to not use genetically sensitive research designs capable of estimating the role of genetic and nonshared environmental influences on criminal justice outcomes may result in misleading results.One of the overarching questions in criminological and criminal justice research concerns uncovering variables that predict contact with the criminal justice (CJ) system (Sampson and Lauritsen, 1997). To be sure, a wealth of research has examined factors thought to increase the likelihood of arrest and formal processing and little debate exists concerning at least one fact: contact with the CJ system is not a random occurrence (Sampson and Lauritsen, 1997). Indeed demographic factors, including race (Sampson and Lauritsen, 1997; Walsh, 2004), age (Moffitt, 1993), and gender (Ferguson and Horwood, 2002), as well as personality traits and developmental processes (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990; Moffitt, 1993) all correlate with varying levels of risk for arrest, incarceration, and formal sentencing. What is noticeably lacking, however, is an effort to examine the role of genetic factors in predicting contact with the CJ system (Beaver, 2011).The evidence implicating genetic factors as source of variance for antisocial and criminal behavior in general is overwhelming (Ferguson, 2010; Mason and Frick, 1994; Miles and Carey, 1997; Plomin et al., 2013; Rhee and Waldman, 2002). The vast majority of researchers in criminology, however, have labored under the assumption that genetic factors play only a minimal part in predicting whom in the population will be arrested, incarcerated, and formally sentenced (Cullen, 2011). This approach may ultimately prove short sighted given the wide array of human outcomes influenced by genetic factors (Turkheimer, 2000). The current study, thus, is intended to be a step toward uncovering sources of variation—both environmental and genetic—for criminal justice processing. First, however, it is important to discuss prior research pertaining to the heritability of antisocial, aggressive, and criminal behaviors.