Twelve years ago when I was a graduate student following the typical rites of passage for getting my Ph.D. at the Sellin Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law, University of Pennsylvania, Marvin Wolfgang asked me if I wanted to analyze the criminal records of a sample of subjects who had participated in one of the largest medical studies in this country. When he described the study's data, I knew that I would want to be part of any effort to examine possible links that could exist between biology and crime. What I did not know was that the results of the ensuing “Biosocial Project” would form my dissertation and that the Project would dominate the next ten years of my professional life.

Those ten years were immensely enriching, but also frustrating. The Biosocial Project seemed always to be shrouded in politics. From the start, I was continually concerned that the Project might be discontinued because some influential social scientists at the time thought that any studies involving biological data were oppressive or fascist. A number of my colleagues told me that they could not understand why the Criminology Center had agreed to take on the Project because it wasn't “mainstream sociology.” In the isolated apprehension that one often acquires as a graduate student, I feared that as time went on I might not be able to finish my dissertation and that my professional goals would be tainted as a result of my association with the Project.