1 online resource (xiv, 124 pages) :

Human physique and behaviour have been shaped by the pressures of natural selection. This is received wisdom in all scientifically informed circles. Currently, the topic of crime is rarely touched upon in textbooks on evolution and the topic of evolution rarely even mentioned in criminology textbooks. This book for the first time explores how an evolution-informed criminology has clear implications for enhancing our understanding of criminal law, crime and criminal behaviour

This book is directed more towards students of criminology than students of evolution. It is suggested that there is scope for more collaborative work, with criminologists and crime scientists exposed to Darwinian thought having much to gain. What is suggested is simply that such thinking provides a fresh perspective. If that perspective yields only a fraction of the understanding when applied to crime that it has elsewhere in science, the effort will have been worthwhile

The authors attempt to provide a modest appraisal of the potential contribution that a more welcoming approach to the evolutionary perspective would make to criminology; both theoretically (by expanding understanding of the complexity of the origins of behaviour labelled criminal) and practically (where the evolutionary approach can be utilised to inform crime control policy and practice). An evolutionary lens is applied to diverse criminological topics such as the origins of criminal law, female crime, violence, and environmental factors involved in crime causation. --Book Jacket

Includes bibliographical references and index

Print version record

Crime and Evolution: Strange Companions? -- People Who Need People? -- Empathy, Theory of Mind and Criminal Behaviour -- The Sense of Fairness and the Emergence of Criminal Justice -- Violence -- Crime: It's a man thing? -- Beyond the proximal: evolution, environments and criminal behaviour -- The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance -- So What?

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