The largest study on sex offences that looked at data over 37 years (1973 and 2009) involving 21,566 men has confirmed that brothers and fathers of men convicted of sexual offences are up to five times more likely to commit a rape or assault than the general public.
The study has been jointly done by researchers from Oxford University and the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) involving men convicted of sexual offences.
READ ALSO: One rape every 30 minutes in India
Speaking to TOI, lead author Professor Seena Fazel - an expert on forensic psychology at Oxford University - said around 40% of the risk of committing a sex crime is genetic with the remaining 60% due to personal and environmental factors.
"I am aware of the recent of rapes in India and I would love to carry out a similar study there over the relation between mental health and crime. Genetic factors have been found to be behind sexual crimes. It leads to increased impulses or a high sex drive among men in the same family. What needs to be seen is whether a similar pattern emerges in other countries like India," Professor Fazel told TOI.
Fazel added "Most times, those needing professional help from psychiatrists are women whose male relatives have been convicted of sexual crimes. Our study now tells these experts that maybe they need to take a look at the male relatives of such offenders and analyze if they are at increased risk of perpetrating a similar crime".
According to the study, those with a brother who is convicted of a sexual offence are five times higher of being convicted of a sexual offence compared to a man whose brother had not been convicted of this type of crime.
Meanwhile, being a father of a man convicted of a sexual offence led to almost four times the risk of being convicted of a sexual offence.
Evidence on the difference in risk between maternal and paternal half-brothers (presumably reared in separate family environments) supports the idea that genetics makes a substantial contribution to increased risk.
Fazel however pointed to the fact that only around 2.5% of brothers or fathers of convicted sex offenders are themselves convicted of sexual offences. This compares to convicted sex offenders making up about 0.5% of men in the general population.
"Experts offering families of sex offenders help should now also look at how to identify other male members of the same family with similar heightened impulses and teach them skills to cope with it," Fazel said.
Niklas Langstrom, professor of psychiatric epidemiology at Karolinska Institute however warned that the world should not start viewing all male family members of sex offenders as a potential risk.
"We are definitely not saying that we have 'found a gene for sexual offending'. What we have found is high quality evidence from a large population study that genetic factors have a substantial influence on an increased risk of being convicted of sexual offences," said professor Fazel.
According to the study, sexual aggression has become a substantial social threat with one-quarter of women and one-tenth of men report being sexually victimized in their lifetime.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=Rape,sex offences,sex offendes,Genetic
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