Creating Born Criminals

Genetic screening, new reproductive technologies, the promise of gene therapies, and the possibility of cloning have made biological solutions to human social problems seem plausible. Creating Born Criminals shows us how history can guide us in responding to the reemergence of eugenics. In this first social history in sixty years of biological theories of crime, Nicole Hahn Rafter examines those theories' origins as well as their content and demonstrates their undue influence on crime control in the United States. Rafter reveals the astonishing reality of eugenic prisons, designed to hold "unfit" criminals for life, which existed as late as the 1960s and which sought to label some offenders not only as inferior but also as a threat to future generations.