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Journal Article 1: Newsome, J., & Cullen, F. T. (2017). The Risk-Need-Responsivity Model revisited: Using biosocial criminology to enhance offender rehabilitation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 44, 1030–1049.

Abstract: During the past four decades, researchers and practitioners working in corrections have shifted from a “nothing works” to a “what works” orientation. Emphasizing the importance of adopting evidence-based interventions, Andrews and Bonta have argued that efforts to rehabilitate offenders should adhere to a number of specified principles of effective intervention, three of which—risk, need, and responsivity—are considered the most critical. These principles were derived from Andrews and Bonta’s theory of the psychology of criminal conduct, which underscores the necessity to link correctional practice to empirically defensible theories of offending. The vast majority of research has provided evidence of the effectiveness of the risk-need-responsivity model; however, far less attention has been given to expanding its theoretical foundation. Given the wealth of evidence supporting biosocial explanations of criminal behavior, we consider potential avenues for enhancing the risk-need-responsivity model through the integration of key findings from biosocial research.

Journal Article 2: Narag, R. E., Pizarro, J., & Gibbs, C. (2009). Lead exposure and its implications for criminological theory. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36, 954–973.

Abstract: This article summarizes what is known about the association between lead exposure and human behavior and discusses the implications for criminology. It provides background information about lead sources and measurement and traces the various impacts of lead exposure on humans, including cognition and behavior. It posits that the link between lead exposure, aggression, delinquency, and crime is consistent with the traditional individual-level psychological based and aggregate-level sociological based theories that explain delinquent and criminal behavior and that differential lead exposure and treatment by neighborhood is congruent with theories of social disadvantage. It concludes by enumerating the unsettled debates about the impact of lead exposure and by outlining the profitable avenues for future criminological research.

Journal Article 3: Pratt, T. C., McGloin, J. M., & Fearn, N. E. (2006). Maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy and criminal/deviant behavior: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 50, 672–690.

Abstract: A growing body of empirical literature has emerged examining the somewhat inconsistent relationship between maternal cigarette smoking (MCS) during pregnancy and children’s subsequent antisocial behavior. To systematically assess what existing studies reveal regarding MCS as a criminogenic risk factor for offspring, the authors subjected this body of literature to a meta-analysis. The analysis reveals a statistically significant—yet rather small—overall mean “effect size” of the relationship between MCS and the likelihood children will engage in deviant/criminal behavior. In addition to being rather moderate in size, the MCS-crime/deviance relationship is sensitive to a number of methodological specifications across empirical studies—particularly those associated with sample characteristics. The implications of this modest, and somewhat unstable, relationship are discussed in terms of guidelines for future research on this subject and how existing theoretical perspectives may be integrated to explain the MCS-crime/deviance link.