Synonyms
Definition
Crime consists of acts which contravene the human moral code and statutory law. Evolutionary principles such as conflict and kin selection, reciprocation, sexual selection, parental investment theory, and strategies to outcompete rivals are used to explain the evolution of crime and criminality.
Introduction
The application of evolutionary principles to our understanding of crime and criminality is a recent development due to the advent of evolutionary forensic psychology. To understand the functionality of crime using an evolutionary perspective, it is important to define what crime and criminality are. A diversity of social definitions has been developed by social scientists; for our purposes here, however, we will resort to a legal approach. Despite there being cross-cultural discrepancies in how minor crimes are perceived and defined, McGuire (2004) has highlighted remarkable uniformity in how serious crimes are considered...
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Taylor, S.(., Workman, L. (2019). Evolution of Crime, The. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3209-1
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