A DNA double helix
A DNA double helix Reuters/National Human Genome Research Institute/Handout

Latest research has revealed how some men are born with a tendency to carry out a violent sexual attack or offence. The unprecedented study has revealed that brothers and sons of men charged of sexual offence are five times more likely to commit a sexual assault or offence than other men.

The study has concluded that while 60 percent chance of committing a sexual offence depends on the environmental and other personal factors, a huge 40 percent of it depends on the inherited genes. The environmental factors include education, history of child abuse and the level of upbringing of the child.

During the study, a team of researchers from Oxford University and Karolinska Institute in Sweden analysed the data of 21,566 men convicted of sexual offence between 1973 and 2009 in Sweden. The researchers found having a brother who has been convicted of a sexual offence raised the chances of a man committing the same crime from 0.5 to 2.3 percent, a multiple of five. In addition, the father of the man convicted of a sexual crime is four times more likely commit a sexual offence, reports The Telegraph.

"We are definitely not saying that we have found a gene for sexual offending or anything of that kind. 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 study co-author from Oxford University, Professor Seena Fazel, reported The Express.

The study, on the other hand, has raised a controversy. The study statistics could be used by the legal representatives of the sexual offenders as an excuse to let go their clients, since their genes are to be blamed for the sexual offence.

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