NEODARWINIAN THEORIES OF VIOLENT CRIMINALITY AND ANTISOCIAL-BEHAVIOR - PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE FROM NONHUMAN ANIMALS AND A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

In this article, photographic evidence is presented that humans are no t alone in the commission of crime, except in the rather trivial sense that crimes can only be committed by ''adult'' humans living in socie ties where written criminal statutes exist. Accompanying this evidence are descriptions of six recently proposed evolutionary theories of vi olent criminality and persistent antisocial behavior (e.g., chronic de ceit and cruelty toward others). These theories venture far from Cesar e Lombroso's famous 19th century proposal regarding criminal atavism t hat has been used to amuse introductory students of criminology for ye ars. Two categories of evolutionary theories are described. The first category pertain to specific crimes: rape (or sexual assault), spousal (and romantic triangle) assault/murder, and child abuse and neglect. The second category of theories target criminal and antisocial behavio r more broadly. These are the cheater (or cad) theory, the r/K selecti on theory, and the coincidental status striving theory. All six theori es have in common the assumption that just as in other social animals, natural selection has acted on human populations over numerous genera tions in ways that frequently give a reproductive advantage to individ uals who victimize others under certain conditions. While these theori es are still too new to have been empirically scrutinized in all respe cts, the available evidence is sufficiently supportive to warrant thei r being given further research attention. Several hypotheses derived f rom the six theories are identified for future exploration. (C) 1998 E lsevier Science Ltd.