Violent and/or delinquent women: a vision from the biopsychosocial perspective

Violence and/or delinquency in women have been masked to some extent by society. Thus, the main goal of this work is to deeply analyse the published works on these matters, in order to understand this phenomenon from a neurobiological perspective. Firstly, the theory of the cycle of violence as a facilitating mechanism of violence in women will be analysed, with a special emphasis on neuroanatomical correlates. Subsequently, the relation between drug consumption and violence in women will be explained. Finally, the main biological correlates known as facilitating mechanisms of violence in women will be exhaustively described. The main risk factors for the facilitation of violence and/or delinquency in women are mistreatment experiences during childhood and drug consumption. Furthermore, high levels of cortisol and testosterone and low levels of serotonin and oxytocin would be correlates of that violence. On the other hand, two types of aggressors have been described according to the response of the Autonomic Nervous System: the premeditated ones, who present a low reactivity, and the impulsive ones, who present a psychophysiological hyper-reactivity. As it is a complex and insufficiently studied issue, increasing the corpus of knowledge in this topic is necessary with the objective of developing effective programmes of treatment and/or prevention.