A social-biological approach has emerged in the most recent research on female criminality. This area of study attributes female crime to a number of factors including: parental deprivation and an inability to adjust to "feminine roles"; psychiatric and familial disorders; impaired physical health; sexual corruption; behavior disorders; and premenstrual and menstrual syndromes. Researchers who have utilized the social-biological approach obtained substantial results when comparing nonoffenders or minor offenders (drug use or prostitution) to violent or habitual female offenders. These researchers found a strong correlation between violent female offenders and numerous factors such as alcohol abuse, problems with impulse control, and neurological abnormalities. Evidence in this field also showed that a broken home is one of the strongest predictors of delinquency among females. Some assert that the consequences of family disorganization are far more detrimental for females due to the greater importance of the family for their supervision and attachment to conventional norms.
With some exceptions, the factors found to be the most prominent in crime among males are also influential in crime among females. Given that society places stricter cultural constraints on female behavior, females who become delinquent or violent appear to deviate more significantly from the norm – biologically, psychologically, or sociologically, – according to the social-biological perspective. Thus, females who make the conscious decision to engage in criminal activity must travel a "greater moral and psychological distance than males".
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