Perinatal Complications Predict Violent Offending

Pregnancy and birth complications are frequently treated as one variable, despite evidence that pregnancy events and birth events may have different impacts on the developing child. This paper studies the association between perinatal events and the development of violent and property crime. In the context of a prospective study of a sample of 216 subjects drawn from a Danish birth cohort, 15 violent criminals and 24 property criminals were compared with 177 nonoffenders on pregnancy and delivery events. Delivery events predicted adult violent offending, especially in high‐risk subjects and recidivistically violent offenders. No other significant predictive results were found.