THE NORMALCY OF CRIME - FROM DURKHEIM TO EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY

A troublesome but generally ignored paradox characterizes contemporary sociological explanations of crime causation. Although many sociologi sts interpret crime as if it were pathological or aberrant and thus '' abnormal'' behavior most simultaneously embrace Durkheim's famous dict um of crime as ''normal'' behavior A review of Durkheim's theory of cr ime causation reveals that it is burdened by several serious logical f laws. And ironically, despite his reputation for propagating a purely sociological explanation of crime, Durkheim resorts ultimately to indi vidual characteristics, rather than social facts, in order to identify the root causes of crime. Contemporary evolutionary game theory affor ds an alternative explanation of the normalcy of much crime without su ffering the deficiencies of the classical Durkheimian approach. The au thors' evolutionary ecological-based theory explains the incidence of ''expropriative'' crime as a by-product of normal patterns of social o rganization and processes of social interaction. Furthermore, this alt ernative perspective successfully explains, within one theoretical fra mework, the link between key macro- and microlevel forces responsible for patterns of expropriative crime.