--- title: Sex Offenders: Relatives Are 5 Times More Likely to Commit Offenses description: Genetic factors were found to increase the risk of a sex crime conviction canonical: https://time.com/3815084/sex-offenders-relatives/ author: Noah Rayman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-09T13:09:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T06:16:00.813Z article:section: Health og:title: Sex Offenders: Relatives Are 5 Times More Likely to Commit Offenses og:description: Genetic factors were found to increase the risk of a sex crime conviction og:url: https://time.com/3815084/sex-offenders-relatives/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sex Offenders: Relatives Are 5 Times More Likely to Commit Offenses twitter:description: Genetic factors were found to increase the risk of a sex crime conviction twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Relatives of Sex Offenders Are 5 Times More Likely to Commit Similar Offenses Finds Study  by [Noah Rayman](https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Apr 9, 2015 1:09 PM UTC  by [Noah Rayman](https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Apr 9, 2015 1:09 PM UTC A new study of thousands of male sex offenders found that close relatives of people convicted of sexual offenses were up to five times [more likely than average to commit similar offenses ](http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-04-09-sex-offending-genes-more-important-family-environment)themselves. Researchers found that about 2.5 percent of brothers and sons of convicted sex offenders are themselves convicted of sexual offenses, compared to about 0.5 percent of the wider public. The correlation, according to the study, is largely due to genetic factors rather than shared family environments. “Importantly, this does not imply that sons or brothers of sex offenders inevitably become offenders too”, Niklas Langstrom, professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “But although sex crime convictions are relatively few overall, our study shows that the family risk increase is substantial. Preventive treatment for families at risk could possibly reduce the number of future victims.” The study, which analyzed data on 21,566 men convicted of sex offenses in Sweden between 1973 and 2009, was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3815084/sex-offenders-relatives/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3815084/sex-offenders-relatives/"},"headline":"Relatives of Sex Offenders Are 5 Times More Likely to Commit Similar Offenses Finds Study","datePublished":"2015-04-09T13:09:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:16:00.813Z","description":"Genetic factors were found to increase the risk of a sex crime conviction","url":"https://time.com/3815084/sex-offenders-relatives/","keywords":["Research","Rape","Crime","Genetics"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Noah Rayman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3815084/sex-offenders-relatives/","name":"Relatives of Sex Offenders Are 5 Times More Likely to Commit Similar Offenses Finds Study"}}]}] ```