Irreducibly social: Why biocriminology’s ontoepistemology is incompatible with the social reality of crime
| Author | Callie H Burt |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806211073695 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Irreducibly social: Why
biocriminology’s
ontoepistemology is
incompatible with the social
reality of crime
Callie H Burt
Georgia State University, USA
Abstract
Professing interactionist bio +social terminology, contemporary biocriminology asserts
a break from its biologically essentialist past. Assurances notwithstanding, whether bio-
criminology has undergone a decisive paradigm shift rejecting notions of biological crim-
inals and bad brains remains uncertain. Unfortunately, discussions of biocriminology’s
assumptions are mired in politics, obscuring important scientific issues. Motivated to
clarify misunderstanding, I address the ontoepistemology of biocriminolog y from a sci-
entific realist perspective. Drawing on familiar notions of crime as a social construction, I
explain how and why biocriminology’s ontoepistemology is inconsistent with the social
reality of crime for scientific not ideological reasons. I explain that recognizing crime as a
social construction does not imply that crime is not real or objective and cannot be
studied scientifically. On the contrary, the irreducibly social nature of crime requires
that scientific realists reject assumptions of “biological crime”as well as the biologically
reductionist epistemology on which biocriminology depends.
Keywords
Biocriminology, biological essentialism, genetics, reductionism, social constructionism
Corresponding author:
Callie H Burt, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology & Center for Research on Interpersonal Violence
(CRIV), Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Email: cburt@gsu.edu
Article
Theoretical Criminology
2023, Vol. 27(1) 85–104
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13624806211073695
journals.sagepub.com/home/tcr
Scholarly efforts to link biology to crime have once again been gaining steam. Departing
from earlier approaches, most contemporary biocriminology adopts interactionist (bio +
social) language, emphasizes the end of nature versus nurture models, and acknowledges
that genes are not destiny and biological determinism is flawed human science (Rafter
et al., 2016). Consequently, 21st-century biologically informed criminology is positioned
to be more influential than earlier notorious iterations (e.g. Hooton, 1939; Lombroso,
1876/2006). In this era, we are assured, the biopathological “criminal type”is widely
recognized to be a fallacious concept, and bio-cautious social scientists can let down
their guard knowing that today “born criminal”explanations would be quickly dismissed
if not ridiculed.
Assurances notwithstanding, whether biocriminology has undergone a decisive para-
digm shift rejecting notions of born criminals, bad brains, and criminogenic genes
remains uncertain. Several critics have argued that biocriminology continues to adopt a
biologically essentialist (i.e. biologistic) ontoepistemology with its biological criminal
type (Carrier and Walby, 2014). However, the persistence of this biologistic ontoepiste-
mology is obscured by flashy new technologies and methods, such as GWAS and poly-
genic scores, and hyped claims about the power, precision, and potential of biologically
informed analyses and interventions (Meloni, 2014).
To evaluate the science of biocriminology, we need to have clarity about the presup-
positions of the worldview undergirding this approach. Unfortunately, most debates
around biocriminology are mired in politics, obscuring important scientific issues. On
the one side, biocriminologists accuse critics of letting their liberal political sensibilities
guide their research rather than adherence to a value-free science (see Walsh, 2009;
Walsh and Wright, 2015). Critiques are thus cast as political-ideological (“environmen-
talist ideology”or “equalitarian dogma”) and dismissed as an “ideological (i.e. non-
scientific) denial[s] of biological inequality”(Carrier and Walby, 2014: 12). On the
other side, some critics have resorted to ad hominem, imputing (“bad”) political
motives to biocriminologists and connecting contemporary biocriminology with horrific
eugenic and/or racist motives or aims of the past. The result is that sociopolitical and
ethical debates have displaced scientific ones. Critics and proponents speak at not with
each other; consequently, controversy and misunderstanding persist (Panofsky, 2014).
This is a mistake. Contemporary biocriminology continues to suffer from underex-
amined scientific inadequacies (Carrier and Walby, 2014). Yet, these deficiencies
remain on the margins of criminology in large part because they are not well under-
stood. It is much easier to ignore critiques we do not understand. Here, I aim to
address this deficit by elucidating biocriminology’s scientific inadequacies, with a spe-
cific focus on illuminating reality-incongruent assumptions and explaining why these
thwart biocriminology’s contributions to criminology and controvert its claims to sci-
entific superiority.
Central to my discussion is the widely agreed upon fact that crime is socially con-
structed (e.g. Carrier and Walby, 2014; Duster, 1990; Schur, 1979). Here, I aim to expli-
cate what this constructionist ontology implies for the biocriminological enterprise. In
particular, why irreducibly social crime is incompatible with biocriminology’s reduction-
ist epistemology has not been clearly explained and remains unappreciated. The result is
that some scholars seem to view the recognition that crime is socially constructed to
86 Theoretical Criminology 27(1)
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