This volume presents an analysis of psychopathic and sociopathic personalities and the conditions that give rise to them. It offers an analysis of socialization and the role played by the crime-relevent genetic traits of the child and the skills and limitations of the parents.

Two generalizations supported by modern behaviour genetic research are that most psychological traits have strong genetic roots and lasting influence of the rearing environment. This book demonstrates that the important trait of socialization is an exception. Although traits that obstruct or facilitate socialization itself is only weakly heritable; this is because modern American society displays such enormous variance in the relevant environmental factors, mainly in parental competence. Moreover, parental incompetence that produces sociopathy contributes far more to crime and violence than psychopathy because sociopaths are much more numerous and because sociopathy is a familial trait for both genetic and environmental reasons.