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Criminology

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C
Criminology
Kristopher J. Brazil and Lisa M. Whittingham
Department of Child and Youth Studies,
Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada
Synonyms
Criminal behavior; Social factors and crime; The
psychology of crime
Definition
Criminology is an interdisciplinary field of study
that focuses on crime and the responses to crime.
Introduction
As the study of crime and society’s responses to it,
criminology is an interdisciplinary field that
brings together scholars, clinicians, and other
professionals from all types of disciplines to
seek an understanding of some of the behaviors
that have deep and broad consequences for soci-
ety. How has crime been studied in the past? How
has it been conceptualized by different societies?
Why are there inappropriate (i.e., criminal and
illegitimate) codes of conduct in all societies
where documentation exists? These are some of
the questions we will pursue in this entry. First, we
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
T. K. Shackelford, V. A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3193-1
will describe what has been studied under
the umbrella term “criminology,” giving us an
appreciation of the history of the field. Then, we
will explore some of the more prominent theories
in criminology from classical to critical perspec-
tives. Then, we launch into an evolutionary expla-
nation of why criminology exists as a field by
framing what it studies – crime and the regulation
of appropriate conduct – as evolutionarily rele-
vant phenomena. We then examine how crimino-
logical observations of sex and age as important
predictors reflect evolutionary principles and
expectations of important predictors. Following
this example, we more explicitly describe two
prominent evolutionary models that attempt to
frame criminological issues using evolutionary
perspectives. Lastly, we give a brief overview of
two varying criminal justice system approaches
that frame the issue of responses to crime
differently – rational-based approaches and
honor-based approaches.
What Is Criminology?
Criminology is a field primarily interested in
acts constituted as crimes and the subsequent
social responses to these criminal acts. Though
sociological theories have played a prominent
role in the development of the field of criminol-
ogy, it is an interdisciplinary field organized
around the study of law and crime, incorporating
contributions from other disciplines such as
2 Criminology
psychology, anthropology, political science, and
law (Durrant and Ward 2015; White et al. 2018).
While there has been a general consensus
among scholars and researchers that criminology
should include the study of law, the causes of
crime, and the responses of society (including
responses by citizens, criminal justice profes-
sionals, and institutions) to criminal acts, there
continues to be disagreement regarding what
should be considered a crime and what specifi-
cally should be included under the purview
of criminology (Durrant and Ward 2015;
White et al. 2018).
The most fundamental definition of crime is
any action that has legal consensus of being
wrong or harmful, that is codified by law or leg-
islation, and that has prescribed sanctions by the
state for violation (Agnew 2011; Durrant and
Ward 2015; White et al. 2018). That being said,
criminologists have also recognized that what
constitutes a crime is socially constructed and
changes based on historical, cultural, and social
conditions (Durrant and Ward 2015; White et al.
2018). For example, cannabis was initially crimi-
nalized in the United States in 1937; however,
in recent years, many states have changed their
laws to legalize the consumption of cannabis for
both medicinal and recreational purposes (Adrian
2015). Therefore, many criminologists have
argued that focusing on legal definitions of
crime is “both too narrow and too broad” in
that “it excludes many harmful acts while includ-
ing many that result in relatively little or no harm”
(Durrant and Ward 2015, p. 2). As an alternative,
some criminologists have argued that the focus
of criminology should not be crime as it is defined
by the law but should also include other acts
that draw social disapproval or nonlegal sanctions
(e.g., ostracization) (Agnew 2011; Durrant and
Ward 2015).
Hagan (1987; as cited in White et al. 2018)
proposed different dimensions that could be used
to define crime. In addition to the legal definition
of crime, he proposed that the definition of crime
could be expanded to include social harms (i.e.,
causes harm to another individual), cross-cultural
universal norms (i.e., patterns of crime observed
across different cultures), labelling (i.e., actions
that are labelled criminal, and are treated as such),
and power dynamics (i.e., reflect unequal distri-
bution of power and access to resources within
a given society) (Hagan, 1987; as cited in White
et al. 2018). Similarly, Agnew (2011) suggested
that crime could be broadened to “acts that cause
blameworthy harm, are condemned by the public,
and/or are sanctioned by the state” (p. 187). While
these theorists may differ regarding what to
include in definitions of crime, they agree that
legal definitions of crime do not capture the
breadth of acts that can be considered a crime.
Furthermore, while Agnew’s (2011) conceptuali-
zation of crime does not account for some of the
important factors identified by sociologists (e.g.,
power differences between social groups),
Durrant and Ward (2015) identify that it enables
contributions to criminology from other disci-
plines, including evolutionary sciences. They
identify that by advancing the definition of crime
beyond legal forms of crime, it opens the field to
include acts that threaten biological fitness and
violate social norms in noncriminal ways, such
as bullying or sexual harassment (Durrant and
Ward 2015, p. 3).
Establishing an inclusive definition of crime is
an important task in criminology given it will help
to contribute to a more holistic and comprehen-
sive understanding of crime and its responses.
Scholars (e.g., Durrant and Ward 2015; Wright
and Cullen 2012) have suggested that the study
of crime could be improved if the field of crimi-
nology incorporated evolutionary sciences as a
means of understanding “the more distal causes
of criminal behaviour – those that reside in the
evolutionary history of our species” (Durrant and
Ward 2015, p. 1). That is, there is a greater role
that biological sciences, specifically evolutionary
psychology, can play in the understanding
of crime since it has already made a significant
contribution in parallel areas of interest to
criminologists (see section on “Evolutionary
Models of Criminology”) and can be integrated
into current criminological explanations to
develop a more thorough understanding of crime
(Durrant and Ward 2015; Walsh 2000; Wright
and Cullen 2012).
Criminology
Several researchers have identified that evolu-
tionary theories and conceptualizations of crimi-
nal behavior have been overlooked in the history
of the field of criminology (i.e., Durrant and Ward
2015; Wright and Cullen 2012). Durrant and Ward
(2015) suggested that one of the possible reasons
for why biological or evolutionary approaches
have been avoided is the role they have played
historically in justifying oppressive practices
based on deterministic views of criminality, such
as eugenics and institutionalization. For example,
at the start of the twentieth century, many coun-
tries (e.g., the United States, the United Kingdom)
implemented legislation that promoted the protec-
tion of society through the containment and elim-
ination of persons considered feeble-minded.
These individuals were considered morally defec-
tive and responsible for many social problems,
such as alcoholism, prostitution, criminality,
and poverty (Scheerenberger 1983). These beliefs
were based on research, such as the The Kalliakak
Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-
Mindedness by Henry Goddard in 1912, which
suggested that based on flawed measurements
of intelligence, that feeblemindedness was hered-
itary and, in turn, recommended the eradication
and containment of persons considered a risk for
contaminating the population and threatening
the prosperity of the state (Scheerenberger 1983).
While historical uses of evolutionary and bio-
logical sciences have been used to oppress certain
populations in the past and have been understood
to endorse a deterministic view of crime, contem-
porary evolutionary and biological sciences
do not condone oppression, and determinism is
no longer a tenable position. Wright and Cullen
(2012) suggested that criminologists need to
move away from old attempts to integrate biolog-
ical and evolutionary theories into criminology
and recognize the role of a biosocial paradigm
of criminology, which is “interested in genetic
variation and tend[s] to focus on traits related to
crime and antisocial behavior to understand how
much variance in a specific trait can be attributed
to genetic and environmental sources” (p. 245).
Durrant and Ward (2015) expand on this point,
suggesting that contemporary developments in
3
evolutionary biology and psychology are more
aligned with existing criminological theories.
Current Perspectives of Criminology
As indicated in the previous section, criminology
is an interdisciplinary field of study, and though its
development has been led largely by sociology,
it is composed of multiple disciplines identified in
the previous section. As the social, historical, and
cultural contexts have changed, several different
and occasionally competing perspectives of crim-
inology have developed (White et al. 2018). Each
perspective attempts to understand crime and the
responses to crime by asking different questions,
focusing on different factors that contribute to the
behaviors of the individual, society, and social
institutions, explaining crime using different con-
cepts, and constructing a different framework
for analyzing and responding to crime (White
et al. 2018). The four most common perspectives
of crime are classical theory, positivism, strain
theory, and critical criminology.
Classical Theories of Criminology
Prior to the Enlightenment period, codes of law
(e.g., the Code of Hammurabi) existed; however,
as Cesare Beccaria – an Italian philosopher and
politician of the time – pointed out, the interpre-
tation and execution of the law were inconsistent,
and punishments were often disproportionately
handed out (Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al.
2018). As such, the social and political movement
in the eighteenth century was characterized by
the movement from feudalism to a system in
which all citizens had rights that were not
connected to their class. In addition, many insti-
tutions, including the criminal justice system,
were influenced by Enlightenment thinkers that
argued humans were rational beings capable of
the choices associated with free will. Influenced
by these philosophers and social thinkers, classi-
cal theorist argued that crime was the result of the
individual’s choice or as a result of irrational
decisions (e.g., inebriation). In addition, given
each citizen was prescribed individual rights, the
state was empowered to develop and codify laws
4 Criminology
to ensure that all citizens are treated equally
(Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al. 2018).
Classical theorists argued that when a crime
occurred, it was a violation of the social contract,
an implied agreement that citizens will forfeit
some of their individual rights in exchange for
protection from the state. Cesare Beccaria argued
that crime impacted all citizens and “society as
a whole,” and therefore it was the role of the state
to re-establish order (White et al. 2018, p. 28).
In addition, philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham
argued that all of human behavior could be
reduced to the pleasure-pain principle that
humans act in ways to maximize pleasure and to
reduce pain. Therefore, classical theories of crime
focused on punishments that were not vengeful
but that acted as a deterrent to prevent both the
individual from committing another criminal act
and other citizens from committing offenses.
Therefore, the role of the state was not only to
decide what constitutes a crime but also what
punishment was proportionate to the crime
(Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al. 2018).
That is, by calculating the cost-benefit ratio of
acting criminally, the state could ensure that the
set punishment was painful enough to act as a
deterrent and would nullify the reward for acting
criminally.
While classical theories of criminology have
been largely influential in many international
criminal justice systems, critiques have identified
that the law remains unequally distributed among
citizens, with some populations being overrepre-
sented. Furthermore, with regard to punishment,
proportional sentencing may not be experienced
the same by all citizens. For example, persons of
lower socioeconomic status are more likely to
experience monetary fines as more punitive than
a person with more resources associated with
higher socioeconomic status (White et al. 2018).
Positivist Perspectives of Criminology
In the nineteenth century, ideas regarding
the nature of humans were being defined by the
colonialism of European nations throughout
the world and the development of the natural
sciences using the scientific method. Positivism
developed as a way of understanding how the
world worked and “ultimately provid[ing] a ratio-
nal means of overcoming existing social problems
and ills by using the scientific method” (White
et al. 2018, p. 38). Criminology was no exception
to this rule – how could the scientific method and
a new understanding of the world (e.g., evolution)
be used to understand crime and provide an effec-
tive response to crime? Two areas of interest
become of interest to positivists: the individual
differences that contributed to an offender deviat-
ing from the general population that caused
crimes to happen and social contributions – mech-
anisms within society (e.g., the family unit) that
no longer operated to ensure the “system was
working as a whole” (White et al. 2018, p. 39).
Compared to classical theorists who focused
on the law and the nature of the offense, positivists
focused on the offender and the individual
and social characteristics that contributed to the
offense (Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al.
2018). This shift in focus had a significant impact
on the definition of crime, since it no longer
focused strictly on legalistic aspects of crime but
began to include deviations from the norm (e.g.,
mental illness, deviant social roles). One of
the most well-known positivists was Cesare
Lombroso, an Italian physician, who tried to
categorize people based on Darwin’s theory of
evolution (Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al.
2018). He initially proposed that criminal behav-
ior was the result of atavism, a regression to
an earlier stage in human evolution; however,
he later refined his classification to different typol-
ogies of the criminal (Lombroso 1911; White et al.
2018). For example, he suggested that female
offenders were typified by characteristics tradi-
tionally ascribed to men.
Given the deterministic perspectives of
the positivist criminological theorists, it is unsur-
prising that the responses to crime were limited
(Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al. 2018).
While classical theorists emphasized the impor-
tance of sentences that suited the crime, positivists
tended to recommend an indeterminate sentence
that took into account the characteristics of the
offender. In addition, positivists focused on inter-
ventions such as treatment or containment to
prevent further disruption to society.
Criminology 5

Critics of positivist theories have identified that One of the most influential strain theorists
these theories have limited ability to explain all was Émile Durkheim, who proposed that
crimes (e.g., white-collar crime). Furthermore, as crime was the result of egoism and anomie
stated previously, many of these theories were (White et al. 2018). Egoism is the state of society
misappropriated and used to oppress many characterized by excessive individualism – “the
populations (e.g., racism). Finally, it has been unrestricted pursuit of individual desires;”
criticized for focusing too heavily on the individ- whereas, anomie is “a state of normlessness, in
ual and micro-level contributions (e.g., familial which society fails to impose norms that inhibit
trauma) to crime and not accounting for macro such behavior” (White et al. 2018, p. 76). The
social conditions that also contribute to criminal importance of Durkheim’s contributions was that
behavior (e.g., poverty) (Hagan and Daigle 2018; it drew attention to the fact that crime was the
White et al. 2018). Nevertheless, some contempo- by-product of certain types of social order
rary writers still ascribe positivist interpretations (White et al. 2018). Merton (as cited in White
to criminal conduct (e.g., Raine 2014). et al. 2018) further contributed to the idea of
anomie by suggesting that crime could be under-
stood in relation to two main variables – cultural
Strain Theories of Crime
goals shared by all citizens (e.g., wealth, status)
With the development of sociology as a discipline
and the different institutional means of achieving
and international changes following World War II
these goals. He proposed that “depending on
observed in the twentieth century, criminologists
the opportunities available to [citizens], people
became more interested in the distribution of
decide to accept or reject the cultural goals and
opportunities throughout society, the ways indi-
to accept or reject the institutional means to attain
viduals related to each other, and the impact of
commonly accepted goals” (White et al. 2018,
these variables on crime (White et al. 2018).
p. 80). Merton would have argue that the youth
Strain theories of crime were the first sociological
in the Sampson and Laub (1993) study experi-
theories of crime, which suggested that crime was
enced greater barriers to accessing resources,
a social phenomenon and the product of social
which in turn influenced the decisions they made.
processes and structures. While positivist theories
Strain theorists proposed that crime is best
of criminology assumed that crime resulted from
addressed by combining individual rehabilitation
individual deficits, strain theorists believed that
with institutional reform that increased access to
crime represented a violation of social norms –
social programs (Hagan and Daigle 2018; White
the agreed-upon values and behaviors within a
et al. 2018). They recommend removing causes
society (White et al. 2018). That is, crime was
of strain by increasing access to social programs
not a result of individual deficits or pathology
that target citizens at risk of experiencing strain
but the result of social strains or tensions (Hagan
(e.g., job finder clubs or afterschool program-
and Daigle 2018; Walsh 2000; White et al. 2018).
ming) and that reduce the strain experienced
Strain theorists proposed that when citizens do
by these individuals (Hagan and Daigle 2018;
not have equal access to resources (e.g., wealth),
White et al. 2018).
these individuals will seek out alternative, inap-
propriate opportunities to meet their needs.
Critical Perspectives of Crime
For example, Sampson and Laub (1993) exam-
Finally, critical theories of crime are concerned
ined how race and economic opportunities shaped
with the structures of power within society and the
the experiences of African-American youth being
ways that power is institutionalized to privilege
charged with an offense. They found that the
certain groups of citizens. For example, critical
experiences of African-American youth were
feminist criminologists are concerned with the
indeed characterized by poverty, which in turn
ways that the law and the criminal justice system
influenced their confinement, especially when
are structured so women face oppression. Thus,
being charged with a drug offense.
many critical criminologists concern themselves
6 Criminology
with revealing the underlying power dynamics
that structure how different groups of citizens are
treated and finding solutions to address them
(Hagan and Daigle 2018; White et al. 2018).
White and colleagues (2018) identified that
critical criminologists can be divided into two
theoretical orientations – structuralists, who
focus on power as something that is embedded
in social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice
system), and postmodernists, who examine how
“knowledge production shapes human experience
while simultaneously engendering conflict over
meaning” (e.g., prostitute vs. sex trade worker)
(White et al. 2018, p. 233). While structuralists
view the marginalization of some social groups as
the cause of crime, postmodern approaches iden-
tify that dominant discourses or popular beliefs
are responsible for establishing what is a crime.
Both structuralists and postmodernists are inter-
ested in revealing the underlying power relation-
ships that contribute to the experiences
of different social groups within the criminal
justice system; however, structuralists focus on
empowering disenfranchised groups and
redistributing resources equitably, and postmod-
ernists focus on building an inclusive society by
defusing the power of dominant beliefs about
criminalized groups of individuals (White
et al. 2018).
While all of these perspectives have advanced
the field of criminology, Durrant and Ward (2015)
identified that evolutionary approaches have
had limited influence in the field of criminology.
Furthermore, several criminologists have identi-
fied that criminology is still a developing disci-
pline and has yet to provide any solutions
regarding how to prevent crime. Durrant and
Ward (2015) proposed that the incorporation of
the evolutionary approach into existing perspec-
tives may lead to a more complete theory of crime
and develop more effective laws and legal struc-
tures to address crime. The goal of this chapter
is to explore how an evolutionary approach can
be used to enhance criminology.
Evolutionary Logic of Criminology
The problems and issues that stimulate a study of
criminology reflect both the prevalence and reality
of crime in society and that there is something
about it requiring and capturing our attention. In
other words, criminology is not just the study
of crime as a static reality in society, it is also
revealing of our concern for the welfare of society.
Humans are an obligate social species that depend
on one another for their survival and well-being,
making the idea that we should care about the
welfare of society completely obvious. But what
of criminal behavior? Why does criminal behav-
ior emerge at all where it can begin to disrupt
social welfare? And why do criminals not only
face costs associated with their criminal activities
but also tend to reap benefits? These are questions
that are informed by an evolutionary perspective
on criminology and are required if criminology is
to maintain a nonarbitrary conceptualization of
crime and criminal activity (Durrant and Ward
2012). Here, a nonarbitrary view provides a full
explanation of why things are constituted as they
are and not some other way and is a unique feature
offered by evolutionary thinking for the social
sciences (e.g., Buss 2009).
The law is an ever-present and structuring fea-
ture of modern societies. It embodies the criminal
justice system that determines what constitutes
a crime and upholds the law by responding to
the commission of such crimes. But where does
it come from? Yes, we can track the legal
operation and history back to its recent origins in
Greek and Roman – as well as other –societies
(see section on “Current Perspectives of Crimi-
nology”), but where does it really come from?
Why is there a law at all? What is it about humans
that seem to compel us to create a law? Again, the
logic provided by an evolutionary perspective is
positioned to generate answers and explanations
for these types of questions, suggesting that its
inclusion in criminology is not only needed but
desirable as well (Walsh and Jorgensen 2018).
The questions posed in the above paragraphs
require more expounding. Crime and the law that
defines it are concepts fundamentally important to
criminology, but why should these things exist?
Criminology
An evolutionary perspective is able to answer this
by conceptualizing crime and the law as social
constructs that reflect humans’ morality – what
feels right versus wrong, seems fair versus unfair,
and deemed just versus unjust – which constitutes
them as an obligate social species shaped by and
for these features (de Waal 2008; Haidt 2001).
Most criminologists would easily recognize that
this is the case that crime and the law are clearly
morally infused. However, an evolutionarily
minded criminologist appreciates that moral
impulses and intuitions form the core of what
has come to be called “crime” and the “law” that
governs it. They acknowledges that these under-
lying moral impulses and intuitions have been
shaped into us by selection because they have
fitness consequences for individuals existing in
those social groups. Thus, a deeper, nonarbitrary
explanation is offered in using an evolutionary
perspective toward problems of criminology,
including the very framing of the discipline and
its problems.
Another example that shows the nonarbitrary
explanation that evolutionary perspectives offer
criminology is understanding our different stan-
dards of conduct depending on who the victim
of the crime is and the context surrounding it
(Walsh and Jorgensen 2018). For instance,
offenses committed against members of your
own community were likely the primordial
forms of criminal conduct that warranted punish-
ment and/or correction. These crimes likely
included cheating, theft, and assault against
in-group members (Durrant and Ward 2012).
What is interesting in using an evolutionary lens
is that it becomes comprehensible why many
societies do not punish acts against out-group
individuals that might otherwise be considered
criminal conduct. A particularly clear example of
this is murder: killing in-group members is con-
sidered illegitimate and a supreme form of unac-
ceptable behavior, whereas the killing of out-
group members has legitimacy, particularly in
the context of war (Daly and Wilson 1988).
Legal documents and codes of conduct have
been prevalent in societies for thousands of years
going back to Hammurabi’s Code. These codes
of conduct, however, regulate the behavior
7
of individuals within a society, making their juris-
diction limited in scope to the group of people
being governed. Even societies that do not have
written technology abide by codes of conduct that
monitor, regulate, and punish the behavior of
in-group members not in the same way as out-
group members. An example is the Yanomamö
tribes in what is now Venezuela and Brazil. This
diverse group of tribes strictly regulates and pun-
ishes in-group cheating, theft, and assault while
condoning and sometimes encouraging out-group
displacement and elimination (Chagnon 2013).
It is expected that this should be the case from
an evolutionary perspective; in-group codes of
conduct should form the core of human societies,
and out-group conduct should be separate, con-
fined to a separate code of conduct involving
intergroup relations. That international law has
not become a preoccupation of individuals around
the globe until the seventeenth century suggests
codes of conduct regarding out-group members
has not been as an important feature of how soci-
eties regulate wrongful behavior as have the codes
of conduct within in-group contexts. In other
words, evolutionary logic predicts that human
societies should first be concerned with governing
their in-group members because this most
ostensibly had fitness consequences for the indi-
viduals abiding by those codes of conduct, espe-
cially in ancestral environments structured by
nomadic and foraging conditions (Tooby and
Cosmides 1992).
So we have seen that crime and the law reflect
our moral impulses and intuitions, and this can be
informed by an evolutionary perspective. But the
final point to make in demonstrating the evolu-
tionary logic behind criminology, as a discipline
and in its subject matter studied, is to show why
crime is classifiable as a concept at all. In humans’
struggle for survival, status, and intimate relation-
ships, individual desires can often come into con-
flict with the desires of other individuals within
the social group. While humans are clearly an
obligate social species dependent on each other,
competition for scarce resources abound, espe-
cially in our ancestral environments where the
traits and features of the mind were shaped
(Tooby and Cosmides 1992). Disagreements
8 Criminology
involving resource competition can progress to
altercations, violence, and homicide (e.g., Daly
and Wilson 1988); they can progress to stealing
from or cheating a competitor; they can progress
to harassment, abuse, and rape. What are these
individuals even competing for that makes
them so motivated to commit acts that their com-
munity will certainly punish? The answer is
connected to resources that guarantee, or at least
enhance, one’s survival and reproductive success.
Ancestors equipped with the capacity to engage in
these acts – especially in certain contexts signal-
ling unpredictability, harshness, and competition
(e.g., Durrant and Ward 2012; Mishra and
Lalumière 2008) – would have left versions of
themselves more successfully than alternatives
that could not engage in such acts given the
appropriate context. Thus, crime exists because
it underlies behavior that reflects the possibility
of creating differential reproductive success in
the competition for resources and mates.
This begs the question for some people not
familiar with deploying an evolutionary lens of
why everyone is not a murderous, cheating, thiev-
ing, and raping despot? Setting aside the fact that
some humans who accumulated enormous and
unconstrained power in history fit this bill (e.g.,
Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible), selection pres-
sures have also abounded that shape prosocial,
moral, and cooperative traits and features into
the human mind. This is why we spent time
discussing why crime and the law reflect moral
impulses and intuitions. There is something about
humans and other social species that demonstrate
the survival and reproductive benefits of engaging
in prosocial, empathic, and moral thoughts, emo-
tions, and behaviors (de Waal 2008). It is not
sufficient to conceive of competition for resources
as a prerequisite to optimizing organisms for con-
flictual and individualistic thoughts, emotions,
and behaviors. The benefits for survival and
reproduction of engaging in more cooperative
acts and forming cooperative networks must be
immense; otherwise, they would not have come to
structure human societies the way they have, giv-
ing rise to codes of conduct, legal systems, and
morality (Haidt 2001). Cooperative thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors facilitated by our moral
impulses have created a more sustainable way to
survive and reproduce across generations. Thus,
while competitively selfish individuals may ben-
efit immediately and over one generation, this
may not be sustainable multi-generationally,
making the execution of such selfish and often
“criminal” conduct more context-specific and
responsive to certain cues in the environment
(more on this in later sections; e.g., Mishra and
Lalumière 2008). Thus, when cooperating, com-
petition for survival as a group of individuals and
as a species can warrant engaging in selfless acts
promoting the well-being of the group over the
individual. In acting selfless, one may also
enhance their own reproductive success in gaining
respect, status, and mates.
Especially in contexts where biological kin are
prevalent as would have been the case in ancestral
environments, selfless acts are often not fully self-
less; instead, they reflect investing in reproductive
success of closely related kin, suggesting a need to
consider inclusive fitness as opposed to individual
fitness (Hamilton 1964). Crimes in modern
society, illustrated by the example of homicide,
illustrate this kin-biased tendency. Estimates sug-
gest around 6% of homicides in the United States
involve biologically related victim-offender
relationships, with the vast majority involving
non-related individuals and a lesser amount
involving spouses or friends who are also not
related (Daly and Wilson 1988). For infanticide
specifically, the risk increases approximately
100-fold when a stepparent is present than when
the biological parents are present. These data
illustrate the importance of using an evolutionary
framework when examining criminal cases for a
deeper, fuller explanation of crime and how to
respond to it.
Criminological Problems and Evolutionary
Principles: The Elusive Cases of Sex and Age
Why are men across cultures responsible for most
of the violent, sexual, and even “petty” crime in
societies (e.g., Krug et al. 2002)? Why does risk
for criminal activity increase after puberty and
decline thereafter? These two often-taken-for-
granted demographic variables – sex and age –
are some of the strongest and most reliable
Criminology
predictors of engagement with crime (Hagan and
Daigle 2018). Existing criminological theories
have difficulty explaining the strength and reli-
ability of either of these two variables’ prediction
of crime, let alone providing a theory that
accounts for and explains both variables’ involve-
ment (Durrant and Ward 2015). Evolutionary
principles, however, easily enable a conceptual
understanding of both how and why sex and
age should predict involvement in crime and, in
addition to this, the types of crimes individuals at
different levels of those variables are likely to
commit (e.g., females vs. males, early adolescents
vs. young adults). Evolutionary theory provides
this conceptual understanding by examining three
interrelated foundational principles that reveal its
unique competence in explaining the involvement
of sex and age in predicting crime.
The first evolutionary principle is parental
investment asymmetry (Trivers 1972). The asym-
metry here refers to the inherent differences that
females and males as potential and actual parents
exhibit in the ways they can invest in their off-
spring. Focusing on humans and other mammals,
females are uniquely responsible for gestation,
placentation, and lactation; even if males wanted
to help with sharing the responsibility for ensuring
these needs are met, they could only ever do so
from a distance and in providing support for the
female to do so (Hewlett and Macfarlan 2010).
Males, on the other hand, are more likely to pro-
vide parental investment uniquely through acquir-
ing food and other resources and ensuring security
against predators and other threats (e.g., from
other groups). Fathers, and other sources of social
support, are also obviously likely to provide
extended care of offspring, especially as children
become more mobile and dependent on other
sources of food besides breast milk (Hewlett and
Macfarlan 2010). To illustrate the profound need
of each sex to specialize in raising offspring, just
imagine a mother of newborn twins in a foraging
society faced with the task of breastfeeding both
infants, maintaining social relationships, and
gathering sources of food but also pressed with
the task of finding high-calorie and high-protein
food (e.g., hunting) and maintaining land and
securing it against potential invaders and
9
predators. Or imagine a father of a newborn in a
similar context whose partner passed away in
childbirth. How will the child survive if they
cannot yet eat solid food and he has no source of
providing breast milk? These mental exercises
demonstrate the need of both sexes working in
concert on differentiated tasks to raise healthy
offspring in the foraging environments of our
ancestors (Friedl 1978).
This asymmetry articulates parental invest-
ment theory, and as this system reaches an evolu-
tionary equilibrium (i.e., the evolution of
mammalian strategies of gene replication), selec-
tion pressures would build and maintain this equi-
librium. This is all to say that, evolutionarily, it is
expected that males and females will be interested
by and competent at different tasks, not absolutely
but relatively. Criminal activity through this
principle should differ based on sex and age.
Younger mothers with less certainty about
resource procurement and social support should
be expected to engage in infanticide at a higher
rate if they perceive they will not be able to raise
the infant to reproductive age, a finding supported
by research (Daly and Wilson 1988; Hrdy 1999).
Young men who are not yet fathers are expected
to engage in the highest-risk behavior in efforts
to demonstrate usefulness and competence to
climb the hierarchy of their male peers and appeal
to putative opposite sex partners who may become
the mothers of their children. This is also borne
out in research, with young and unmarried men
representing the highest-risk group for commit-
ting homicide (Daly and Wilson 1988) and other
crimes (Krug et al. 2002).
The second evolutionary principle informing
sex and age demographics in crime follows inti-
mately from the first principle. The second prin-
ciple, reproductive success-from-multiple mates,
is that there is a reproductive limit imposed on
females in mating with multiple partners that
is not experienced by males (Bateman 1948).
Putting aside morality, sustainability, or other con-
straints imposed upon humans, one man could
impregnate many women within a relatively
short time span. The same is not true if the
women in this scenario had multiple men to
mate with. Women, even if they have multiple
10
male sex partners, will become impregnated dur-
ing only one of those matings, and any matings
thereafter would not add to her reproductive suc-
cess in a straightforward and reliable manner
(cf. Hewlett and Macfarlan 2010; Hrdy 1999).
This reality imposes selection pressures on the
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of males to be
more likely to consider or pursue casual and mul-
tiple sexual partners that is not comparably found
in females. In this framework, males should be
more preoccupied with and engage in casual sex
because it was more likely (but not definite) to
enhance at least some ancestral males’ reproduc-
tive success (Daly and Wilson 1988).
How does this second principle influence sex
and age demographics involved in crime? Based
on this principle, males are expected to engage
in riskier, more impulsive, and more sexual
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This could
facilitate the engagement in extra sexual relation-
ships that otherwise would not be acquired; the
costs associated with risky and impulsive tenden-
cies is offset by the potential reproductive benefits
in males that is not the case for females. Thus,
behaviors that involve risk and impulsivity such
as showing off in dangerous situations, adventur-
ing to unknown areas, and willingness to engage
in anonymous sex are more common in men
(Mishra and Lalumière 2008). These noncriminal
but “deviant” actions reflect a sex-biased ten-
dency to engage in criminal actions as well,
including violent altercations, sexual harassment
and assault, and homicide (Daly and Wilson
1988). Thus, the same tendency that may make
men reduce their threshold for risky and impulsive
actions because of their potential reproductive
payoff may form the base for their over-
involvement in crimes as well, helping to explain
why men and not women are committing most
crimes and especially sexual and violent crimes.
The third evolutionary principle of explaining
sex and age demographics in crime is reproduc-
tive variance asymmetry. This principle relies on
and follows from the first two principles and states
that because women can spend lengths of time
caring for existing and not producing new off-
spring and men can father multiple offspring
with different women, there is a greater likelihood
Criminology
that some men may not reproduce at all while
others may reproduce an inordinate amount
(Daly and Wilson 1988). This observation of
greater variance in reproductive success should
be less stark for women because they will have
both many potential male partners interested in
them and will not experience the same reproduc-
tive benefits in seeking out multiple partners
(Bateman 1948). This principle observes that
men who acquire more resources, dominance,
and influence socially may translate their social
and cultural capital into having many sexual part-
ners, which subsequently enhances their repro-
ductive success while making other men lose
out. This is supported in foraging societies (e.g.,
Chagnon 2013) and in acute historical examples
such as the life of Genghis Khan. Men in these and
many other societies left no offspring in the
next generation because one or a few men were
reproducing with more of the women than a
one-to-one ratio would suggest. This observation
identifies a hidden anxiety that may structure the
reproductive efforts of men, especially when
environmental cues suggest the variance in repro-
ductive success is skewed in favor of a few men
(Daly and Wilson 1988).
This hidden anxiety and the evolutionary prin-
ciple fueling it may be powerfully positioned to
comprehend both the sex and age disparities in the
commission of crime. Why do boys and young
men seem so motivated to compete? Why does
this competition often fuel violence, abuse, and
even fatalities? If the stakes are, or could be, as
high as being among the few who reproduce com-
pared to the many who do not, then competition to
be among the few could become fierce. Methods
to be counted among the few may be stretched
beyond “appropriate” limits – stealing to acquire
resources, killing to gain status as a fierce fighter,
and sexually coercing a woman against her will.
As a male reaches puberty and is entering the
reproductive pool, this competitive edge and feel-
ing the hidden anxiety of male reproductive vari-
ance begin, explaining the age-crime curve that
positions adolescent and young men as the most
criminal. The important thing to consider with this
principle is that it is the perception of boys and
young men growing up that can fuel this
Criminology
competitive mentality. If they perceive their envi-
ronment as competitive where few males are
succeeding and most are failing, this may be
enough to orient them toward thoughts, emotions,
and behaviors that facilitate or at least permit the
illegitimate use of criminal conduct. This is why
an evolutionary explanation is useful to criminol-
ogy: it offers a conceptualization useful for for-
mulating social policy that reduces the likelihood
of crime by working with the desires of youth and,
in this case, how to reduce the instance of young
men committing criminal acts (see Durrant and
Ward 2012; Walsh and Jorgensen 2018).
These three evolutionary principles – parental
investment asymmetry, reproductive success-
from-multiple mates, and reproductive variance
asymmetry – provide a powerful framework for
understanding the tendency of sex and age to be
predictive of crime across societies. Appreciating
not just that these variables are predictive but why
they are as well requires a deeper explanation than
what is currently on offer from criminological
theories (see section on “Current Perspectives of
Criminology”; Durrant and Ward 2015). An evo-
lutionary perspective adds complementary, and
not necessarily competitive, explanation to
existing criminological theories and concepts
(e.g., Durrant and Ward 2012). We will now turn
to more fully articulated evolutionary models
that have treated criminological issues as their
central focus.
Evolutionary Models of Criminology
The two most prominent models in constructing
an evolutionary argument of the problems of
crime are life history theory (LHT; for a thorough
review, see Del Giudice et al. 2016) and evolu-
tionary neuroandrogenic theory (ENA; Ellis
2005; Ellis and Hoskin 2015). These theories are
not mutually exclusive and have more similarities
than differences. LHT and ENA are presented so
that readers may get a different flavor for how
evolutionary theory and its principles can guide
research in criminology.
11
Life History Theory
A unique and fundamental observation made by
LHT is that organisms make trade-offs during
development in the different areas of growth,
maintenance, and reproduction (Del Giudice
et al. 2016). This observation brings to light that
investment in some areas can preclude investment
in other areas, particularly when resources and
energy are scarce. Because our ancestral environ-
ments (and many modern environments) would
have had long periods of resource and energy
scarcity (e.g., Tooby and Cosmides 1992), evolu-
tion has likely instilled environmentally contin-
gent strategies in organisms that vary the level of
investment in these areas of development, leading
to manifesting the capacity for what can be called
different life history strategies. Fundamental
trade-offs that organisms make include assessing
current versus future reproduction, quality versus
quantity of offspring, and parenting versus mating
effort (Del Giudice et al. 2016). The resulting
investment is considered an individual’s life his-
tory strategy, and this strategy represents
the embodied capital that an individual has, with
the notion of “capital” implying currency in the
capacity for survival and reproduction.
LHT proposes that organisms are fashioned
within their genetic endowment to respond flexi-
bly to their environments depending on different
salient and recurrent environmental cues. This
flexible responding allows organisms that have
faced variable environments over the course of
generations to have multiple pathways to ensure
reproductive success. Or, different environmental
pressures throughout a species history have led to
different gene-environment adaptations (and the
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors they produce)
that facilitated reproductive success. LHT argues
that the predecessors of these ancestral organisms
have inherited a repertoire of adaptations that are
“unlocked” and expressed when similar environ-
ments are faced by this new generation that shares
this genetic endowment. From this perspective,
LHT claims that evolution has “done the thinking”
for organisms and provides them with different
developmental pathways that respond to environ-
mental variability to optimize trade-offs in
12
facilitating reproductive success (Del Giudice
et al. 2016).
An LHT perspective conceptualizes engaging
in criminal and antisocial conduct as representing
a strategy that leans toward investment in current
reproduction (not future), quantity of offspring
(not quality), and mating effort (not parenting)
(Wiebe 2012). In this model, investing in specific
cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strategies
that themselves may not constitute criminal con-
duct (e.g., anger, impulsivity, future discounting)
may lead to increasing the risk of engagement in
crime. Strategies that mark more crime-risk cali-
brations are described as faster life history strate-
gies, whereas less crime-risk calibrations are
slower life history strategies (Boutwell et al.
2015). The environment is a key component in
this theory. LHT suggests that children (and even
prenatal fetuses) are constantly monitoring their
environments for cues that help them make
optimal developmental decisions to ensure their
survival and reproductive success. Environmental
cues that signal unpredictability, harshness, and
social competition are proposed to orient devel-
opment toward more crime-risk life history strat-
egies, making these types of environments
important for criminologists to understand.
Because of these concerns, LHT is similar to
other criminological theories such as strain theory
(Durrant and Ward 2012). LHT is one evolution-
ary framework that provides a unifying under-
standing of many variables that predict crime
including sex, age, race, and socioeconomic status
(Boutwell et al. 2015).
Evolutionary Neuroandrogenic Theory
ENA focuses on and provides an explanation of
both the how proximate mechanisms associated
with criminal correlates and why such correlates
should exist (Ellis 2005). The why part of ENA
encapsulates the evolutionary component, and the
how part constitutes the neuroandrogenic compo-
nent. The two components of ENA are intimately
connected and conceptually represent a single
underlying construct formulated at different levels
of analysis (Durrant and Ward 2012). The theory
makes use of the concept of competitive/victim-
izing behavior, which describes a continuum of
Criminology
competitive actions that can vary on their risk or
chances of victimizing another individual (Ellis
and Hoskin 2015). Actions that are competitive
but do not have a victim (e.g., competitive sports,
games) are not considered criminalized behaviors,
but competitive actions with victims are consid-
ered criminalized (e.g., sexual assault, theft). It is
no surprise that these actions with victims tend to
have consequences for survival and reproductive
success of both perpetrator and victim.
The evolutionary component of ENA makes
use of female mate choice to assist with
explaining why competitive/victimizing behavior
should exist in the first place and particularly in
men. Connecting back to parental investment the-
ory (Trivers 1972), ENA proposes that females
have preferred and thus selected for males
throughout humans’ evolutionary history to be
loyal resource provisioners for the successful rais-
ing of offspring. This idea suggests that ancestral
females would have been more likely to mate with
males who were proficient at provisioning
resources for her and her offspring, making traits
that facilitate resource provisioning more and
more common in males. Some of these traits
would include competitiveness, status-seeking,
and hunting skills, of which men across cultures
tend to manifest more than women (Ellis and
Hoskin 2015). Along with this observation for
more resource provisioning skills in men is the
accompanying selection pressure for men to fake
these skills and rely on deception to mate and, if
deception fails, to potentially resort to coercion.
Thus, ENA provides a framework for understand-
ing why the patterns of crime exist and why men
tend to exhibit characteristics that make them
more likely to be counted among the criminals.
How these characteristics get formed is the con-
cern of the other component of ENA.
The neuroandrogenic component of ENA sug-
gests that the way this differentiation of the sexes
occurs is through masculinization of the brain and
body through androgen hormones, particularly
testosterone (Ellis 2005). This component clar-
ifies that in order for a male reproductive strategy
to manifest, changes need to occur in the neural
structures governing behavior, which can then
facilitate more male-biased strategies. These are
Criminology
proposed to be (1) suboptimal arousal and
(2) rightward shift in cortical functioning. These
two proximal explanations of making a brain
more male-like constitute a higher risk of engag-
ing in competitive/victimizing behavior, since
these mechanisms facilitate analgesic
(pain-reducing), anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing),
and emotion-attenuating functions (Ellis and
Hoskin 2015).
ENA provides an explanation of why crime, as
behavior that is competitive and victimizing,
is more common in men than women and why
age, particularly the onset of puberty in boys,
predicts crime to such a great extent. With the
relative enormous surge in testosterone at puberty
in boys compared to girls, ENA clearly conceptu-
alizes why crime increases after this age in boys
and young men while also accounting for why this
hormone-behavior link should occur to begin
with. In other words, the link emerged because
of selection pressures for the resource provision-
ing skills required and desired by females in the
ancestral past to ensure the health and survival
of their offspring.
Variations in Criminal Justice Systems
In this final section, we want to explore how
evolutionary approaches can support alternative
forms of justice. Just as criminology has devel-
oped, so too has the criminal justice system. While
moral impulses and intuitions are expected to
structure and guide the formulation and response
to crime, humans also have a vast capacity to
cognitively rationalize and reason which can
impart substantial influence on moral judgments
(e.g., Haidt 2001). To illustrate this difference in
criminal justice system approaches, we will
describe two systems that have different underly-
ing assumptions about “human nature” and that
have influenced how crime and responses to crime
are conceived. The first is the current dominant
approach in much of the world, a rational-based
retributivist and rehabilitative approach, while the
second is more prevalent in indigenous commu-
nities and likely governed the behavior of much
of human history, a relational honor-based system
13
based on reparation (Little Bear 2000; Sommers
2018). We do not intend to treat these systems as
oppositional or polarized nor to claim they are the
only two possibilities but merely to explore alter-
native systems for crime and its regulation. Many
modern jurisdictions have developed structures
that blend these two approaches to justice (for
a longer discussion of these systems, see
Sommers 2018).
Much of the Anglo-American criminal justice
system has developed based on the retributivist
principles first introduced by classical theorists
(such as Jeremy Bentham). That is, when an
offense has been committed, the state is responsi-
ble for assessing culpability and imposing a fitting
punishment. Once the punishment had been
served, justice had been served (Wenzel et al.
2008). Wenzel and colleagues (2008) identified
that there were two goals of punishment (1) deter-
rence, to prevent the likelihood of future offenses,
and (2) retribution, a proportionate and just
response to reduce the benefits associated with
committing crime. Alternatively, another goal
of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation of
the offender, that is, to address the individual
factors associated with the offense to be able to
reintegrate the offender back into society (Wenzel
et al. 2008). Durrant and Ward (2015) noted that
from an evolutionary perspective, “we have
evolved a set of motivational and emotional char-
acteristics that, taken together, constitute a sense
of justice and guide our decision-making when we
encounter situations where individuals have vio-
lated moral and social norms” (p. 111). They also
noted that people tend to be naturally motivated
to punish others who violate group norms in ret-
ribution; however, as Walsh (2000) noted, a strict
tit-for-tat strategy that is unforgiving once cheated
may not garner the same benefits that occasional
or situational forgiveness would permit. He
suggested that while tit-for-tat was effective in
smaller groups, the addition of punishment is
more effective in larger groups.
In contrast to these rational-based systems
and their measures of correction, relational
honor-based systems may constitute a primordial
conceptualization of crime and its regulation,
possibly tracing its origins to some of the first
14 Criminology

foraging societies and many modern indigenous by not remaining permanently punitive but
communities (e.g., Little Bear 2000). This instead by cooperating, even when the other
approach assumes that human nature is inherently strategy cheats” (p. 857). That is, everyone
relational and that people are seen as intimate (victim, offender, and community) benefit from
extensions of their social group; the social group forgiveness and the processes of restorative
is the person, and the person is their social group. justice, and the risk of losing a valuable contribu-
Following from these assumptions is that people tor that may help to secure survival is decreased.
have an inherent responsibility toward their soci- It is interesting that restorative justice models
ety and are thus expected to make reparations have been integrated into legislation targeting
when infractions against others within the youth. Walsh (2000) identified that a strict tit-
society have been committed. These infractions for-tat strategy with youth would be detrimental,
(or crimes) are seen as relational injustices, and so especially given adolescence represents a period
they require a relational approach when formulat- in which there is a discrepancy between skill and
ing a model for correction and/or punishment. biology.
In recent years, criminologists have started to
pay attention to other models of justice that reflect
an honor-based system, such as restorative justice.
Conclusion
While scholars and advocates continue to debate
whether this model of justice represents an alter-
Criminology is an interdisciplinary study of
native or addendum to the current criminal justice
crime, and the responses to crime have generated
system, several legislations have started to incor-
a wealth of knowledge surrounding the commis-
porate restorative justice principles in their
sion of crime, its predictors, social situations
legislation (e.g., the Youth Criminal Justice Act
that elicit it, and many other topics. Its inherently
in Canada) (White et al. 2018). Scholars of restor-
interdisciplinary focus makes criminology a
ative justice (e.g., Zehr and Mika 1998) have
prime study for integrating an evolutionary frame-
outlined three key tenets of restorative justice:
work governing human behavior into the realm
recognition that the offense does not only affect
of its focus. Equipped with the wisdom of time in
the victim and the offender but also members of
producing and reproducing thoughts, emotions,
the community; recognition that the offender has
and behaviors related to crime, evolutionary per-
obligations and liabilities to the community as a
spectives provide a complementary approach to
result of their actions; and finally, recognition that
expanding the scope of explanation afforded to
the process promotes community empowerment
criminologists.
and healing.
In restorative justice models, the focus is on
reparation – repairing the relationship between the
offender, the victim, and the community (Wenzel Cross-References
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municates social disapproval and also provides
an opportunity for the offender to make amends
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