Every contact leaves a trace: contact with the criminal justice system, life outcomes, and the intersection with genetics

Contact with the criminal justice (CJ) system is a relatively common occurrence in the United States. Criminologists and sociologists have long considered the impact of contact with the CJ system on later-in-life outcomes. This body of work has revealed a great deal of heterogeneity in life outcomes, suggesting individual differences are important to consider. At the same time, recent advances in the genomic sciences have allowed researchers to gather information from across the entire genome and to summarize that information into polygenic scores. In the present review, we consider how polygenic scores might be used to advance research into the impact of CJ system contact on life outcomes. In particular, we emphasize the importance of gene-environment interaction (G × E). We suggest that contact with the CJ system might represent a substantively important environmental moderator of polygenic risks. But we caution that studying the moderating role of contact with the CJ system will have its own complications-points that scholars must begin to consider and discuss now that the genomic era has reached the social sciences.