This report of the Standing Senate Committee on Health, Welfare and Science summarizes and coordinates interdisciplinary evidence and expert opinion in order to provide insight into the way early childhood experiences might be considered as causes of later criminal behavior. The material is divided into three categories: the prenatal period, the perinatal period, and the postnatal period (including the early childhood years from birth to school age). Within the three categories the following topics are discussed: the genetic factor, malnutrition, intra-uterine abuse, emotional stress, birth experience, prematurity, bonding, emotional privation, child abuse, violence in the home and on the streets, television, learning problems, multiple disadvantagement, poverty, and alcoholic or criminal parents. Witnesses before the committee emphasized both physical and psychological influences on criminality. While it was not possible to establish precise cause and effect relationships between early experience and later criminal behaviors, research revealed the interactive effect of multiple disadvantages on child development. The problems of multiple disadvantaged as well as abused children are foci for immediate intervention. Many recommendations for policy and interventions are proposed. Lists of witnesses appearing before and briefs submitted to the committee are appended. (Author/RH)