Sex crimes could be traced to genetic predisposition too

Gene may be the Father of a Rapist

New Delhi, April 9: If a man commits a rape in Delhi next time, despite deterrent environment set off after the horrific Nirbhaya gang rape episode, probe his gene pool. Gene may well turn out to be the father of the rapist.

This can well be an inference from a latest study done in Sweden on the genesis of sex offences. The findings are published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study is first of its kind which has been done on more than 21,000 sexual offenders. The study may lead to behavioral therapy for potential sex offenders wired on such rogue genes.

The study has concluded that Men are more likely to commit sex crimes if their father has been convicted for a similar offence. Sex crime genes prowling within families could significantly increase the risk of men committing sexual offences.

According to the findings men are four times more likely to carry out a sex offences if their fathers too have committed them. The risk aggravates five times if men have a brother who has been convicted of the same crime. According to the study genetic factors account for 40-50% of the risk, with the remainder coming from the environment that men grow up in and other medical or social influences.

The researchers stress the overall risk is small – just 2.5% of brothers of sex offenders are likely to commit similar crimes themselves. But there is no genetic inevitability that relatives of sex offenders will commit crimes too. One of the authors Professor Niklas Langstrom, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, says, ‘It is important to remember that it’s nothing mystic. People get worried about the fact that there’s a strong genetic component in problematic human behavior. Of course, you don’t inherit in some kind of robotic way so that you will grow up to be a sexual offender.’

Co-author Professor Seena Fazel, of Oxford University, says, ‘We are definitely not saying we have found a gene for sexual offending or anything of that kind. What we have found is high-quality evidence that genetic factors have a substantial influence on an increased risk of being convicted of sexual offences.’