Evolution and the Prevention of Violent Crime

doi:10.4236/psych.2011.24062

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Psychology

2011. Vol.2, No.4, 393-404

Evolution and the Prevention of Violent Crime

Jason Roach1, Ken Pease2

1Huddersfield University, Huddersfield, UK;

2Loughborough University, Loug hborough, UK.

Email: j.roach@hud.ac.uk

Received April 28th, 2011; revised June 2nd, 2011; accepted July 3rd, 2011.

This paper suggests how violence prevention can be better informed by embracing an evolutionary approach to

understanding and preventing violent crime. Here, ethical crime control through an evolutionary lens is consid-

ered and speculation is offered as to what an evolution-evidenced crime reduction programme might look like.

The paper begins with an outline of the current landscape of crime prevention scholarship within criminology

and presents some possible points of contact with actual or possible violence reduction practice, including child

homicide and violence against women. The paper concludes with suggestions for an ethical research agenda for

reducing violence, whereby it is hoped that an audience of open-minded criminologists and diverse students of

evolution may lend a hand in in c reasing the sophistication of the criminological study o f violence prevention.

Keywords: Violence, Evolu t i o n , Child Homicide, Prevent i on

Introduction

Criminology generally is justly criticized for its theoretic in-

sularity, and in particular its general hostility towards or neglect

of approaches other than that of sociological determinism

(Pease, 2010; Roach and Pease, in press). Its journals tend to be

titled according to geography or methodological focus (e.g.

European Journal of Criminology, Journal of Quantitative

Criminology). There are few cross-discipline titles characteris-

tic of faster-advancing disciplines, and cited references tend to

be older and more often book based than one finds in livelier

branches of scholarship. When one of the present authors told a

distinguished professor of mainstream criminology that he was

co-writing the present paper, the reply was a derisive “You’re

better than that”.

Insofar as systematic attempts at crime reduction take their

theory from academic criminology, evolutionary perspectives

are therefore predictably marginal or absent. In the near eight

hundred pages of Nick Tilley’s authoritative edited “Handbook

of Crime Prevention and Community Safety” (Tilley, 2005),

evolution is mentioned once, in a chapter by the second author

(Pease, 2005). It is not mentioned at all elsewhere, even in the

chapter on violent and sexual crime (Maguire & Brookman,

2005). It would be tedious to rehearse the absence of evolution

as a topic from all other leading recent texts on crime preven-

tion, such as Welsh and Farrington (2006) and Tilley (2010).

Attempts to translate evolutionary insights into social policy

have an unhappy history. Many social scientists may thus feel it

prudent to avoid such contributions as it may make. For exam-

ple, in 2008 when the authors asked attendees at the British

Society of Criminology annual conference to complete a short

questionnaire asking for their opinion on the utility of evolu-

tionary thinking in criminology, only a derisory fifteen per cent

condescended to do so, and most of those who did, considered

it to be irrelevant to criminology.

Tooby and Cosmides (1990) define evolutionary psychology

as, psychology which centres on the fact that the structure of

the human mind, which has been inherited, and represents the

product of evolutionary processes (i.e. natural and sexual selec-

tion). Put more simply, what we can do today is a direct result

of what was needed to be done in order to increase our ances-

tors’ survival and reproductive chances in the past. What as

humans we are able to do today, therefore, is a direct result of

the evolution of our species—namely how our ancestors

adapted to their environment. Genes being simply the method

of transmission between generations.

Evolutionary psychologists seek “functional” explanations

for behaviour. For example, why a particular human behaviour,

ability or characteristic has evolved, and not causal explana-

tions, focused on immediate precursors or causes of that be-

haviour, in the environment in which it occurs (Smith & Ste-

vens, 2002). This is a rapid departure from, for example, be-

haviourist psychology and environmental criminology, where it

is the immediate environment which is of primary focus. Evo-

lutionary psychologists focus instead on the distant past, at-

tempting to locate the function of certain behaviours in our

evolutionary past by looking at our ancestors. Smith and Ste-

vens (2002), for example, pose the question, why is it human

beings have evolved spoken language when other close pri-

mates, such as chimpanzees, have not? Many other aspects of

chimpanzee physiology (including a 95% DNA match) are

similar, so what were the evolutionary pressures that supported

the ability to develop and use language in humans only? Evolu-

tionary psychologists adopt reverse engineering in seeking

answers to questions such as this (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990).

An evolutionary informed criminology of the sort called for

in this article, should consider how distal factors (such as dis-

plays of aggression related to sexual competition and fitness

among young men) interact with the more proximal (e.g.

crowded, noisy bars full of young men) and how this can in-

form violence prevention strategies and interventions. We call

for an “Evolutionary informed criminological” approach to

violence, which, therefore, considers how distal and proximal

factors contribute and interact when explaining (and preventing)

J. ROACH ET AL.

394

crimi nal be haviou r, refe rred t o as Gene × Environment (G × E)

effects. Caspi and colleagues’ wonderful example of the inter-

action between expression of the MAOA gene and violent be-

haviour is presented later in the article (Caspi et al., 2002).

Eugenics and social Darwinism apart, the central objection of

criminologists to accepting evolutionary insights seems to be

that crime, including violent crime, is a social construct, and

explaining a socially constructed phenomenon in biosocial or

evolutionary terms constitutes a category error. This objection

is not a powerful one. To adopt and adapt the Gottfredson and

Hirschi (1990) characterization in their general theory, crime

can be seen as actions seeking to gain advantage over con-

specifics by force or fraud. Minor definitional tweaking is nec-

essary to exclude sanctioned combat sport and warfare, but the

vast bulk of criminal law reflects this, consisting of more or

less tightly worded proscriptions of intra-species advan-

tage-taking by force or fraud. Violent crime represents the first

of these means of securing advantage. This is not of course to

say that most attempts to gain advantage by force or fraud are

treated, still less processed, as breaches of criminal law. More

such attempts probably occur in a day’s playground bullying or

questionable sales techniques than in a century’s processed

crimes, even in societies that would see themselves as governed

by the rule of law. Neither is it the case that law is equally ap-

plied cross-nationally, with violence against women represent-

ing a particularly troubling case in point (see Weldon, 2002).

There are tautologies involved in the linkage of evolutionary

thought and what counts as a crime. Criminal law is enacted for

forms of behaviour which are deemed to be too serious or dis-

ruptive of social order to be dealt with by citizens informally or

via civil law. There is no need to enact criminal laws in respect

of behaviours which no-one wants to perform, or which harm

only the behaver. There is no law against coprophagia, for ex-

ample. Matters are more complex than this, given a religious

underpinning to the criminal law which has in the past forbid-

den suicide, for instance. Nonetheless, it is tenable to assert that

criminal law proscribes those actions which sele ction pressures

of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) gave

some or all of us the inclination to perform, as the EEA-derived

equivalent of Original Sin. Insofar as this is the case, crime

reduction constitutes an attempt to curb or sublimate evolu-

tion-derived predatory actions. As Owen Jones (2005) notes,

law is “a tool for moving human animals to behave in ways

they would not otherwise behave if left solely to their own de-

vices” (p. 953). Of course this also applies to education and

regulated sport, as well as to the behaviour of both the offender

and the preventer. Jones framed the “law of law’s leverage” as

follows

“The magnitude of legal intervention necessary to reduce or

to increase the incidence of any human behaviour will correlate

positively or negatively, with the extent to which such a pre-

disposition contributing to that behaviour was adaptive for its

bearers, on average, in past environments” (p. 962)

Save for a quibble with the insertion of legal as the fourth

word in Jones’ law (since most effective interventions seem to

consist in the manipulation of opportunities rather than weight

of legal response) the point is well made. That said, criminal

law has to be seen as an attempt to produce behaviour different

from what it would be were selection pressures to have their

way unimpeded. Effective laws against murder or dangerous

driving, for example, alter selection advantage for those who do

not waste their reproductive years in prison (and careful pedes-

trians). This, of course, represents a crude position. And the

application to problems of violent crime of memetics as a form

of evolutionary thinking would yield a more sophisticated per-

spective. Indeed, a wholly different perspective could be taken

on the issue by concentrating on enhancing cooperation rather

than reducting its antithesis, agonistic behaviour. While this

approach was seriously considered, given the extensive current

work from that perspective (see for example Nowack, 2011) it

was rejected for no better reason that the length of the piece

was already unwieldy and the deadline for its submission past.

Having thus excluded the option of “accentuating the posi-

tive” in favour of seeking to “eliminate the negative”1 what,

then, can the present article hope to contribute? It aspires (very

diffidently) to consider ethical crime control through an evolu-

tionary lens, and thereby to invite the deployment of evolution

insights in criminology journals and crime reduction practice,

and to speculate what an evolution-evidenced crime reduction

programme might look like. To that end, it will

1) Outline the current landscape of crime prevention schol-

arship within criminology, with the hope of eliciting contribu-

tions from those with expertise in evolution science; and

2) Present some possible points of contact with actual or

possible violence reduction practice, by reference to extant

literature in evolutionary psych ology and crimino logy.

The hoped for audiences are open-minded criminologists and

diverse students of evolution who may lend a hand in increas-

ing the sophistication of the criminological study of violence

prevention. Given these aims, it is perhaps inevitable that some

ideas will be seen as banal, others as tendentious. Successful

crime reduction approaches must, arguably, be conistent with

evolutionary thought, otherwise they would not have been suc-

cessful. To anticipate a conclusion, attempts to change those

embarked upon a criminal career based upon presumptions of

pathology enjoy limited success relative to those based upon

common perceptions of crime opportunities. Evolutionary in-

sights are sought primarily in relation to how people understand

and respond to violence-precipitating situations.

In what follows, violent crime prevention refers to the pre-

clusion, by ethically defensible means, of individual violent

offending acts. Harm reduction involves the reduction of

harmful consequences in unprevented violent acts.

Crime reduction: the state of the art.

The conventional classification of crime reduction distin-

guishes primary, secondary and tertiary methods. This best-

known categorization was devised by Brantingham and Faust

(1976). Primary prevention reduces crime opportunities without

reference to characteristics of criminals or potential criminals.

Secondary prevention seeks to change people, typically those at

high risk of embarking upon a criminal career. Tertiary preven-

tion works by the truncation of a criminal career, in length,

seriousness, or frequency of offending. The Brantingham and

Faust classification was later refined by Van Dijk and de Waard

(1991) and remains useful. Primary prevention has focused

upon proximal causes or precipitators of the crime event, and

can be criticized for neglect of distal ‘causes’. However, this is

a matter of convenience and immediate utility, rather than being

1And not “mess ing with Mr. In-Between ”, as enjoined in th e Johnny Mer-

cer-Harold Arlen song.

J. ROACH ET AL. 395

intrinsic in the definition. Primary prevention simply assumes a

supply of motivated potential offenders, and changes the cir-

cumstances which realize the latent criminality. While this has

typically involved place design, hot spot management, and

other such factors, it does not in logic exclude structural factors

of evolutionary interest, such as the gender composition of

populations. Indeed, the origins of routine activity theory,

which underpins much primary prevention, lie in the linkage of

distal factors such as the lengthening of childhood dependency

and general access to goods. Thus primary prevention is here

used to include all approaches which are person-neutral, i.e.

which does not seek or target individuals according to their

present or predicted criminality. Primary prevention also sits

more easily with the public health perspective favoured by the

World Health Organisation (see Krug et al., 2002).

Primary crime prevention has some advantages over rival

approaches in terms of the weight of evidence brought to bear

in its support, and in terms of the slightness of the level of so-

cial engineering often necessary for its implementation in its

proximal form. Underpinning the approach, as noted above, is

the routine activities theory of Marcus Felson (2002), in which

an offender who is ready, willing and able encounters, seeks out

or engineers a crime situation comprising a vulnerable and

attractive target of crime, in a favourable environment and in

the absence of motivated and capable preventers. Routine ac-

tivities theory was initially developed to address the paradox of

increased urban violence at a time when social conditions

deemed relevant improved (Cohen & Felson, 1979). These

authors saw predatory crime as a by-product of routine activi-

ties, in particular the dispersion of activities away from home

and family.

If crime, especially violent crime, is simply the natural work

of evil or damaged people, then convicting and incapacitating

evil and damaged people lies at the heart of police work. For

those of the left politically, the emphasis is on the remediation

of damage to the person, deemed to have been occasioned

through deprivation of one kind or another. Marcus Felson

(1994) refers to this as the “pestilence fallacy”, which asserts

that bad things come from other bad things. He writes:

Why was the major period of crime rate increase in the

United States 1963 to 1975, also a period of healthy economic

growth and relatively low unemployment? Why did Sweden’s

crime rates increase greatly as its Social Democratic govern-

ment brought more and more programmes to enhance equality

and protect the poor? (pp. 11-12).

Felson concludes that “crime seems to march to its own

drummer”, and that the richness of crime opportunities is the

crucial factor which determines the beat. This is a conclusion of

fundamental importance for crime reduction, suggesting that

the regulation of the supply of crime opportunities is central to

the reduction enterprise.

The common criticism by scholars in the biological sciences

of the application of evolutionary ideas to behaviour and its

regulation is best known as simply retailing “Just So” stories,

speculative and unconstrained by evidence (see for example

Coyne, 2009). Our riposte is that much of criminology has con-

sisted of Just-So stories of sociological origin, to the point

where the discipline of criminology is fragmented and possibly

in terminal decline (see for example Loader & Sparks, 2010). If

evolutionary concepts turn out to have no more than heuristic

value in designing research and crime-reductive practice, it will

be no worse than what has gone before. If it turns out that suc-

cessful crime reduction can be derived from and is consistent

with such concepts, a new direction for criminology will have

been signposted. Co-evolution has already been used as a simile

for the “arms race” between offenders and purveyors of pri-

mary prevention (Ekblom, 1997, 1999),2 and some primary

prevention techniques have apparently been inspired by animal

defence mechanisms, for example the squid’s deployment of

opaque fluid when under attack.3 Felson (2006) devotes a chap-

ter of his book “Crime and Nature” to “Crime’s First Defences”.

Understanding offender foraging behaviour has informed opti-

mal police deployment (Johnson et al., 2009).

Primary Violent Crime Prevention: Can

Evolutionary Thinking Contribute?

The renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking argued in

April 2010 that we should avoid making contact with extrater-

restrial life forms. The media reported this in somewhat xeno-

phobic terms (if that word can be applied to extra-terrestrials).

The more misanthropic truth was revealed by his remark that

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life

might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.”4

As Buss and Shackelford (1997) point out, the ubiquity of

human violence cannot be explained solely by the variables of

usual criminological interest. Although of no little importance,

the question whether violence has roots as an adaptive strategy

that once increased reproductive success, it is not the brief for

this article, it being specifically about prevention. The age

crime curve and the preponderance of male violence are per-

haps the two central facts about the distribution of criminality.

Self-reported and recorded offending, both violent and other,

peak in the late teens and are higher for males at every age. The

claim that the age-crime relationship is invariant across epoch

and culture (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983) is roughly true, with

the exceptions being of equal interest as the generality. For

example Zhong (2005) showed that in a period of rapid eco-

nomic development in Taiwan, the age-crime curve peaked

earlier for property but not for violent offending, which Zhong

ascribes to the continuity of Chinese ‘culture’ over the period.

Robert Wright (1994) asserts that the leading cause of vio-

lence is maleness, to which may be added youth and unmarried

status (see Mesquida & Wiener, 1996, 1999). In brief, violence

is often about sexual selection. The classic psychological theory

of violence is the frustration-aggression hypothesis, which

holds that aggression is the response to the expected interfer-

ence with a desired goal (Dollard et al., 1939, see also Berko-

wittz’s 1989 reformulation). Stressing the primacy of sexual

selection as the root of frustration is the distinctive contribution

of evolutionary thinking. If that insight holds, there seem to be

two strategies which fit into the primary prevention category,

two distal, two proximal. The distal tactic concerns establishing

sex ratios or sexual mores which do not deny sexual expression

2Paul Ekblom, shown the section in the text, comments Biological

co-evolution of predator/prey capabilities etc is a simile, but cultural/

technical co-evolution of offending and preventing techniques is the real

thing.

3http://www.smokecloak.co.uk/en/ accessed April 17th 20 11.

4http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8642558.stm accessed April 13th 2011.

J. ROACH ET AL.

396

among male adolescents and young adults. As Gottschall (2008)

opines,

“…a real shortage of female reproductive capacity, relative

to male demand, is endemic to the human condition. In this

shortage lies the answer as to why men fight… sexual selection

has shaped men to compete for women and for concrete mate-

rial resources and for intangible social resources because…

these resources [are] reliably converted to reproductive advan-

tage” (pp. 48-49).

It is entirely unrealistic to suppose that sex ratios at birth

should be manipulated in the interests of the prevention of later

violent crime. Indeed, since the female population defines ef-

fective reproductive channel capacity, the population implica-

tions of such a strategy would be horrendous.

The second distal approach would involve an attempt to re-

duce anticipations of lifetime failure amongst adolescent males.

Daly and Wilson (2005) note the higher rate of future dis-

counting (in effect preferring short over long term rewards)

among males and among the young (paradocically, given the

increasing uncertainty of the future as one gets older). They

note the greater variability of reproductive outcome among

males, and the resulting competition amongst males. After jus-

tifying rate of homicide as a proxy for inter-male competition,

they find homicide to be most frequent amongst those with

least to lose, unemployed and unmarried men, with divorced

and widowed men reverting to higher rates of homicide, Char-

acterising the deployment of reproductive effort as a gamble,

anticipation of the high probability of an early death or other

form of removal from the reproductively active is consistent

with the choice of a strategy of attempting risky and frequent

impregnation. While plausibly argued, it is difficult to think of

viable social policies which would substantially inflate the re-

sidual reproductive value of young men which would not be

justif ied more powerfully by other ega litarian argume n ts.

The impracticality of both distal options makes the proximal

ones more important.

The proximal tactics concern:

1) The nudgeability of human behaviour;

2) Harm reduction (here treated as a form of primary preven-

tion), whereby the affordance or means for translating violent

intent into injury or death are denied those likely to exhibit such

intent,

These will be dealt with in turn.

Over the past 25 years or so there has been a gradually in-

creasing recognition of the possibilities offered by focusing on

crime events rather than on offenders (Gilling, 1997; Crawford,

1998).Overstating the case only slightly, the evidence for the

success of intelligently conceived and well-implemented pri-

mary prevention (Clarke, 1992, 1997; Goldblatt & Lewis, 1998;

Sherman et al., 1998; Tilley, 2010) is very substantial. Such

success is consistent with situational rather than dispositional

theories in social psychology. The capacity of slight changes in

setting to evoke substantial changes in behaviour represents a

well-established tradition in social psychology, with Walter

Mischel (1968) a pioneer. Mischel’s analyses revealed that the

individual’s behavior, when closely examined, was highly de-

pendent upon situational cues, rather than expressed consis-

tently across diverse situations that differed in meaning. A ne-

glected feature of Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies was his

manipulation of the proximity of the person apparently admin-

istering electric shocks and the person to whom they were ad-

ministered, which yielded massive changes in the intensity of

shocks they could be induced to administer (see Milgram,

1977). Momentous decisions (such as committing suicide) are

remarkably changeable by removing one means of doing so, by

making domestic gas supplies non-toxic (Clarke & Mayhew,

1988), installing catalytic converters to vehicles (Lester &

Clarke, 1989), and restricting the size of paracetomol and aspi-

rin packets (Hawton et al., 2001). More recently Zimbardo

(2007) develops the point. Thaler and Ornstein (2008) rename

the situational determinant the “nudge” and apply it widely to

social policy. Human nudgeability, and the capacity to afford

multiple uses for objects, it seems embarrassingly obvious to

relate, is a consequence of the human evolutionary route,

whereby a wide range of environments become habitable by

dint of behavioural flexibility and innovation. The longstanding

recognition of the fact of imitative learning, and the more re-

cent exciting research and speculation about mirror neurons as

the basis of such learning, including the imitation of prosocial

behaviour (see Thomson 2010 for an introduction).

Turning to harm reduction, the concept of affordance pro-

vides one way of thinking about the situational specificity of

behaviour alluded to earlier, and permits the elaboration of the

concept of opportunity. The original Gibsonian (1950) meaning

of affordance concerned things that you could actually do with

objects. An object’s affordance comprised what one could do

with it. Don Norman (e.g. 1998) extended this to perceived

affordance, ie actions that the thing suggested you do with them.

Ekblom and Sidebottom (2007) describe it in the crime oppor-

tunity context as an offender’s capacity to see utility in an ob-

ject. While doing participant observation in an ex-prisoner’s

hostel, one of the writers observed a fight break out very

quickly and a heavy glass ashtray was wielded as a weapon. To

the writer, it had just been an ashtray a moment before! Base-

ball bats “afford” thoughts of violence more than cricket bats,

and are sold in all large British sports stores, despite the fact

that baseball is played very little in the UK. The position on

glass as a weapon and on gun availability is more difficult to

summarise. Conventional (annealed) drinking glasses or bottles,

when broken, yield sharp edges capable of inflicting serious

injuries. Such events are generally known as glassings. Tough-

ened glass shatters on impact, and is relatively useless as a

weapon. Yet a randomised controlled trial showed 60% more

injuries from toughened glass than from annealed glass. The

conclusion was reached that glass with lower impact resistance

caused more injuries. “Toughened” glassware had lower impact

resistance. Standards for toughening need to be developed.

(Warburton & Shepherd, 2000, see also Coomaraswamy &

Shepherd, 2003). Subsequent analysis showed that this coun-

terintuitive result was a consequence of the greater resistance to

breakage of annealed glasses, which occasioned the plea for

revised standards for toughening (not developed at the time of

writing). While the results were obviously disappointing, para-

doxically they do illustrate that weapon characteristics were

relevant to the degree of harm inflicted. For instance, assaults

with bottles caused less severe injuries than assaults with

drinking glasses. In a local initiative in Liverpool in 1997, a set

of simple measures preventing glasses and bottles being taken

onto the street reduced the rate of glassings by some 50%.5

5http://www.popcenter.org/library/awards/tilley/2001/01-49(W- cdrc).pd

accessed April 9th 2011.

J. ROACH ET AL. 397

The media characterise Swiss gun crime as low, despite the

wide availability of weapons by military reservists. However

Killias (1993) found that Switzerland has five times as many

homicides committed with guns as Great Britain versus only a

slightly higher non-gun homicide rate. His explanation for the

lack of gun use in other crime is that the military weapons that

are kept in Swiss households are of little use to ordinary crimi-

nals, because they are heavy and far too long to be concealed

under a coat or in a case. Zimring and Hawkins (1987) contend

that the firearm effect consists in escalating consequences.

They provide data on altercations involving knives far less

often result in death, for example. Lott (2005) argues that the

power-equalising effects of handguns is neglected in statistics.

He uses national victimization survey to assert that women

without a gun resisting attack are some four times greater than

women resisting with a gun. The male difference is smaller but

in the same direction. Grossman (2009) notes the relationship

between remoteness of assailant to target enabled by modern

weaponry and psychological ease of assault. He notes that

changes in the realism of targets used during weapons training

will affect rate of fire in battle. A historical nod in the direction

of Konrad Lorenz is necessary. To him we owe the insight that

animals with the most fearsome natural weapons are those with

the best developed behavioural inhibitions on lethal assault. He

wrote

“…all heavily-armed carnivores possess sufficiently reliable

inhibitions which prevent the self-destruction of the species. …

No selection pressures arose in the prehistory of mankind to

breed inhibitory mechanisms preventing the killing of con-

specifics” (Lorenz, 1966, p. 233).

It is perhaps not too much of a stretch to say that the paucity

of natural inhibitions on the expression of violence is consistent

with the primary reduction focus on limiting the precipitating

circumstances of violence and the weapons availability which

set limits on the amount of harm done in violent attacks. Cer-

tainly some of the major examples of successful practice are of

this type. These include place-oriented approaches to gun crime.

Braga (2003) writes, with supporting research, that

“Officers can reduce gun crime by changing the features, fa-

cilities, and management of problem places. For example, if

problem analysis reveals that easy access to common areas in

front of a high school causes youth gun crimes to be clustered

there immediately upon school release, police should experi-

ment with ways to limit access to these areas during problem

times. The practice of problem-oriented policing is still devel-

oping, and additional research is needed on different ap-

proaches to controlling gun violence hot spots”.6

Violence at pubs and bars is reduced (Scott & Dedel, 2006)

by maintaining:

“A comfortable and entertaining atmosphere reduces both

frustration and boredom among patrons, which can reduce ag-

gression levels. Lighting should not be so bright that it acts as

an irritant, but also not so dim that it can conceal customers’

activities. An important environmental consideration is the

crowding level. Police in some jurisdictions enforce occupancy

limits (primarily adopted for fire safety) as a means to control

the bar crowding that can lead to fights. Redesigning a bar’s

interior to improve traffic flow and prevent congestion can

reduce the opportunities for accidental bumps and drink spills

that may escalate into fights”.7

While such conclusions may seem self-evident, they do illus-

trate that manipulable aspects of the immediate environment

can nudge behaviour from violence and/or reduce harm. Some

sixty-four design guides on crime reduction, about a third ad-

dressing violence, have been published by the Centre for Prob-

lem-Oriented Policing (http://www.popcenter.org/) and are

worth consulting to gain an impression of the range and types

of problem in which demonstration projects have found place

manipulation to be effective.

Secondary Violent Crime Prevention

It will be recalled that secondary prevention is oriented to-

wards those who may be particularly prone to develop prob-

lematic behaviour. Aggressive behaviour appears very young

and is characterized by high stability coefficients across many

years (Olweus, 1979). Serbin and Karp (2003) reported that

aggression (and depression) in primary school aged girls were

predictive of aggression amongst their children. Of course the

mechanisms may have no evolutionary relevance, but this does

mean that there is reason for secondary intervention, particu-

larly since aggression was linked with a variety of other unhap-

pinesses in the lives of aggressors (Junget et al., 2007).

Many lines of research in evolutionary psychology have clear

implications for secondary violence prevention. The two most

obvious are selected for attention here. One is the evidence for

apparent gene-specific effects of environment on the develop-

ment of violent people. The second concerns the particular risks

to children associated with step-parentage.

In her admirable, unfashionable classic The Nurture As-

sumption, Judith Rich Harris (1998) contends that the contribu-

tions which parents make to their children’s development pri-

marily comprise their genes and where they decide to set up

home. She points out that in the socialization literature, the

effects of parenting styles are confounded with those of shared

genes. She reviews the literature on the relationship between

parent characteristics and child characteristics and demonstrates

that either the same characteristics must have different and

largely unpredictable effects on children, or that those inﬂu-

ences are largely illusory. Is poor parenting a risk factor in a

child’s development, or do parents tending to (for example)

impulsivity, transmit that attribute through the conventional

genetic means?

Familial inheritance is always both the result of genetic en-

dowment and environment, but environments are made, and are

often correlated with the dispositions of those who inhabit them.

Moffitt and Caspi suggest with regard to antisocial behaviour;

“Environments are provoked by a person’s genetically influ-

enced behavior, or a person chooses environments consonant

with her genotype, or a person’s genotype results in him selec-

tively finding him self in certain environments” (2006, p. 127)

The implications of Rich Harris’s work are profound. They

should be no surprise to those familiar with the earlier literature

on criminality and biology (see, for example, Mednick &

Christiansen, 1977). The latter authors demonstrated that crimi-

nality in the biological parent is reﬂected in a higher prevalence

6http://www.popcenter.org/problems/gun_violence/summary/accessed April

9th 2011.

7http://www.popcenter.org/pr oblems/assaultsinbars/accessed April 9th

2011.

J. ROACH ET AL.

398

of criminality in the child, whatever the criminal record status

of the adoptive parent. More recent work under the flag of neu-

rocriminology has looked in detail at brain functioning, condi-

tioning and cri minality (see for example Gao et al., 2010).

Some scholars suggest that searches for answers to questions

such as these have led to a preoccupation with ‘risk factors’ that

often confuse co r re l ates with caus e s;

“Influential reviewers have concluded that the study of anti-

social behaviour has been stuck in the ‘risk-factor’ stage (Far-

rington, 1988, 2003; Hinshaw, 2002; Rutter, 2003a, 2003b)

because so few studies have used designs that are able to

document causality (Rutter et al., 2001). A variable is called a

‘risk factor’ if it has a documented predictive relation with an-

tisocial outcomes, whether or not the association is causal”.

(Moffitt & Caspi, 2006: p. 109).

Arguing whether behaviour is a result of biological charac-

teristics or specific environmental experiences was likely the

result of misdirection (Suomi, 2009). More exciting is the re-

alization by many that both genetic (nature) and environmental

(nurture) factors play crucial roles (e.g. Collins et al., 2000) and

indeed both often interact to shape behaviour and its individual

development (e.g. Rutter, 2001).

One illustration of the importance of understanding behav-

iour (including violence) from a gene x environment interaction

perspective (hereafter, G × E) is provided by studies with

rhesus monkeys. It has been consistently shown that it those

that have been reared by peers and not their biological mothers,

appear much more “anxious in nature” and excessively “fear-

ful” than their “mother-reared” counterparts’ (Suomi, 1991,

1995). Indeed longitudinal studies have shown that male

“peer-reared” monkeys consistently exhibit more extreme be-

haviours (and with increased frequency) such as being overly

aggressive and overly impulsive, than those reared by biologi-

cal mothers (Suomi, 1991, 2009).

So how can adopting evolutionary thought help explain such

G × E interactions? Put briefly, we can surmise that those

reared by peers and not their mothers, do not have their aggres-

sive survival impulses attenuated. Indeed a predisposition to

aggression and violence would be considered vital to survival

in an environment where access to food and reproductive part-

ners is hotly contested with rival male peers. With those fortu-

nate to be raised by their mothers having their early nutritional

and protection needs provided for in their formative years at

least.

So should predictions of such behaviour by rhesus monkeys

be based simply on an identification of early-rearing environ-

ments and not on gene × environment interactions?

The short answer is no as recent research points to such iden-

tifiable differences in behaviour between male “peer-reared”

and “mother reared” monkeys as being more the result of gene

× environment interaction rather than just early-rearing experi-

ence alone (Suomi, 2009).

The neurotransmitter serotonin is posited to be an important

consideration when explaining unusual and extreme behaviour.

More specifically, the occurrence of certain mental health

problems, such as anxiety and depression, alongside behaviours

such as fear, aggression and violence, has long been associated

with decreased serotonergic functioning. The serotonin trans-

porter gene (5-HTT) is generally held responsible for such a

decrease in functioning when it occurs (Lesch et al., 1996),

because it has ‘a length variation in its promoter region that

results in allelic variation in serotonin expression’ (Suomi,

2009: p. 17). Heils et al. (1996) distinguish “long allele” (LL)

from “short allele” (LS), with the latter raising the possibility of

decreased serotonergic functioning and therefore, an increase in

the likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviour.

Barr et al. (2003) found a “buffering effect” which appeared

to mitigate some of the monkeys with the LS allele from the

full effects of decreased serotonergic functioning, according to

their early-rearing experience. Where high levels of aggression

was observed in peer-reared monkeys with the LS allele, for

mother-reared monkeys with the LS allele it was not, demon-

strating an important interaction between genes and environ-

ment. Put simply, the consequences for these monkeys of hav-

ing the notorious LS allele appear to differ dramatically ac-

cording to whether the monkeys were raised by peers or

whether they were buffered from its effects by being raised by

their biological mothers. Suomi (2009) summarises the signifi-

cance of this finding rather nicely;

Indeed, it could be argued on the basis of these findings that

having the LS allele may well lead to psychopathology among

monkeys with poor early rearing histories but might actually be

adaptive for monkeys who develop secure early attachment

relationship with their mothers’ (p. 18).

In sum, compelling evidence is presented that genetic and

early experience factors in interaction affect a monkey’s capac-

ity to regulate expression of fear and aggression (Suomi, 2009),

with important implications for our own species;

“Clearly, the context in which development takes place mat-

ters a great deal for rhesus monkeys. It is hard to imagine how

it could be less so for human development”. (Suomi, 2009: p.

19).

The importance of interactions is lent support by the work of

Terrie Mofﬁtt and her collaborators (see Mofﬁtt, 1993, 1997,

2003) whose distinction of adolescent-limited and life-course

persistent offenders casts the latter as predisposed as a result of

inherited and/or early acquired neuropsychological deﬁcit. Of

particular current interest is the gene variant MOAO which

lowers the activity of the enzyme monoamine oxidase A and

which seems implicated in violence. This relationship is

stronger amongst maltreated children (see Caspi et al., 2002).

Of course, reﬂecting Rich Harris’s insights, it is not necessarily

the case that maltreatment activates the propensity to violence.

Equally plausible is the notion that MOAO and other as yet to

be identiﬁed violence-relevant genes drive both parental vio-

lence (in the form of maltreatment) and child aggression. In

path terms, the message is simply that one ignores at one’s peril

genetic or other early factors disposing to preferences. Kim-

Cohen et al. (2006) conducted a replication and meta-analysis

and concluded “These findings provide the strongest evidence

to date that the MAOA gene influences vulnerability to envi-

ronmental stress, and that this biological process can be initi-

ated early in life” (p. 903). Widom and Brzustowicz (2006)

found the effect in white children only, adding a further interac-

tive complication.

The relevant research has not been slow to make its way into

the courtroom. Bernet et al. (2007) describe their own experi-

ence and anticipate future developments as follows

“It seems possible that both the defence and the prosecution

may be interested in introducing evidence regarding a defen-

dant’s life experiences and genetic make-up to a jury. In a case

of aggravated assault, for instance, the prosecution may say that

J. ROACH ET AL. 399

a defendant has violent tendencies (based on the person’s

genotype conveying low MAOA activity and a history of se-

vere child mistreatment) and should be removed from society

for as long as possible. On the other hand, the defence may say

during the sentencing phase of a first-degree murder case that a

person’s genotype and history of severe abuse during childhood

is mitigating” (p. 8).

It is telling that the work of the Moffitt-Caspi team and its

replication has been applied to the court literature before the

child protection literature (as far as the writers have been able

to determine after questioning relevant domain experts). What

are the implications for child protection? We may discard the

notion of being indifferent to the parental practices of those

children whose genotypes afford them some protection against

the acquisition of violent personalities! Rather it places an extra

premium on ensuring as fa r as possible the quality of child care

generally. Not to do so is effectively to collude in allowing

preventable harm which compounds the effects of the genetic

lottery itself. A parallel may perhaps be drawn with phenylke-

tonuria (PKU), where screening on neonates allows manage-

ment, and avoidance of the progressive mental impairment

which otherwise ensues.

A brief aside can perhaps be permitted. It has been specu-

lated that the mechanism underlying the MAOA-abuse interac-

tion may be epigenetic in nature. Kramer (2005) defines epige-

netics as “the study of stable alterations in gene expression by

nongenetic mechanisms resulting in stable alterations in phe-

notype” (p. 16). In an astonishingly prescient article, Kendler

and Eaves (1986) anticipate the essential facts of epigenetics,

focusing on sensitivity to the environment. This, both in the

sense of responsivity to the cues which make primary crime

reduction effective, and in the particular sense of empathy (or

its lack, see Baron-Cohen, 2011) will be a crucial point of de-

parture for research which seeks to link applied criminology

and evolution.

Speculatively, epigenesis makes evolutionary sense in a wide

number of cognitive and affective contexts. This form of gene

regulation is primarily under matrilineal control and has

evolved partly to co-ordinate in-utero development with mater-

nal resource availability (Keverne & Curley, 2008). A detailed

general introduction to epigenetics is to be found in Allis,

Jenuwein and Reinberg (2007). Szyf et al. (2009) provide a

clear brief account of the methylation and other events under-

pinning epigenesis, and report research on putative epigenetic

effects on maternal care, and preliminary work on epigenesis

and lifetime trajectories of aggressive behaviour.

In respect of violence, epigenetic effects which favour ago-

nistic behaviour only in environments in which parents had

exhibited similar behaviour towards them, makes intuitive

sense, and its neglect culpable. Kramer (2005) contends

“…the future of child and adolescent psychiatry is ethically

connected to the developmental processes designed by natural

selection and inherited by way of evolution. For anything re-

sembling the continuation of normal human interactions and

normal family-centred developmental processes, our work

should be inter-woven with the complex interactions occurring

between the epigenome and the phenotype” (p. 297).

The same could certainly be said of criminology. The defen-

sible next step will be to reanalyze longitudinal studies of

criminality (the Cambridge study now incorporates data from

three generations) to test epigenetic hypotheses.

Preventing Child Homicide?

For most people, the killing of a child is felt to be the most

heinous and distressing of all crimes (Adler & Polk, 2001). It is

mercifully rarer for children to be victims of homicide than

adults. In England and Wales there will be approximately 110

child homicides per year from an average total number of ap-

proximately 700 recorded homicides, roughly equating to 14%

of all homicide victims (Brookman, 2005). Quite understanda-

bly, child homicide provokes the most outrage from the public

(Adler & Polk, 2001). As a category of crime it has also been

identified as an important influence on public confidence in law

enforcement (Innes, 2003)

Gene-centred evolution-based speculation (as no doubt

elaborated elsewhere in this issue) would suggest that kinship

would reduce child killings, and those in a parenting role with-

out a kin relationship would be more induced to kill, This

should be particularly true of de facto “fathers” since effort

spent nurtuting someone else’s children would retract from

available future reproductive attention. Daly and Wilson (1988)

in a ground-breaking study of child homicides in the US con-

cluded that children were approximately 100 times more likely

to be killed by a “non-biological parent” (e.g. step-parent, co-

habitee or boyfriend/girlfriend of a biological parent) than a

biological one. Similar findings have since been found in other

parts of the world including Canada (Daly & Wilson, 1998) and

Australia (Adler & Polk, 2001). In Canada, Daly and Wilson

(1988, 1998) found a co-residing step-parent was approxi-

mately seventy times more likely to kill a child under two years

of age than a co-residing genetic parent.

Creighton (1989), in a report produced for the children’s

charity the NSPCC (the National Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Children), found that in England and Wales for the

period 1983-1987 almost a third of those recorded as victims of

intentionally inflicted physical injuries lived with one “natural”

(biological) and one “substitute” (non-biological) parent. A

random sample of children within the same age-range from the

wider population of England and Wales would have comprised

only three percent (Daly & Wilson, 1998).

In support of Daly and Wilson’s (1988, 1998) finding that

young children are disproportionately at risk of homicide by

step-parental males (more than 100 times more so). Adler and

Polk (2001) in their Australian study of child homicide also

identify that when young children are killed it is often by their

mother’s de facto partner (i.e. a young step-father figure) rather

than at the hand of their biological fathers. Further support is

provided by a recent more localized study of 127 child homi-

cides carried out by the first author (Roach & Shepherd, 2010)

where in the case of young child victims the mother’s de facto

partner (i.e. the child’s non-biological father) was most com-

monly charged with their murder. British readers will be re-

minded of the tragic case of “Baby P”, where seventeen month

old Peter Connolly was killed by his mother, her de facto part-

ner (and his brother) after months of sustained physical and

emotional abuse.8

8http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/second%20serious%20case

%20overview%20report%20relating%20to%20peter%20connelly%20dated

%20march%202009.pdf (accessed 14/04/2011).

J. ROACH ET AL.

400

Research has uniformly shown that it is more common for

older children to be killed by their biological fathers than by

male step-parental figures. (Daly & Wilson, 1988, 1998; Adler

& Polk, 2001) A common scenario is where the father attempts

filicide-suicide, as response to a marriage break-up, separation

from his children, or as an act of revenge against the mother

(Adler & Polk, 2001). Mothers who kill older children appear

generally to do so “to save” them from a perceived life of mis-

ery, often by successful filicide-suicide. For mothers, revenge

does not appear to be a motivating factor in the killing of their

children. Love does (Adler & Polk, 2001).

Mothers who kill their children appear to overwhelmingly do

so within the child’s first year of life (neonaticide—within the

first 24 hours being most common see Adler & Polk, 2001)

Psychiatric illness is often deemed a mitigating circumstance

(Adler & Polk, 2001; Roach & Shepherd, 2010).

Traditional criminological explanations struggle to explain

why, for example, young children are often more vulnerable to

becoming victims of homicide at the hands of a step-parental

figure than by a biological parent. Often quoted explanations

for crime per se, such as deprivation and poor educational at-

tainment, do not adequately explain, for example, why it is that

step-parental figures from all social strata and educational back-

grounds are consistently over-represented as perpetrators of

child homicide. Indeed the problem of explaining why takes us

back to the old problem of confusing correlates and causes. As

we have endeavoured to show here in this short article, apply-

ing evolutionary thinking fares much better.

Although our desire for British criminologists to incorporate

evolutionary thinking into the current understandings and ex-

planations for crime, we must not lose sight of our purpose with

this article of preventing violence. Theoretical understanding

may be one thing but practical application is another. What we

find most worrying is that the illuminating research on child

homicide discussed has not made its way to practitioners

working in child protection arenas in the UK.

From discussions with child social work colleagues, the au-

thors are quite convinced that neither the work of Daly and

Wilson, Adler and Polk, or any other like-minded research of

child homicide (enlightened by evolutionary thinking) has

made its way to those in the UK charged with the Hercuean

task of working in child protection. Our initial soundings sug-

gest that this most enlightening research on child homicide has

not been translated into prevention practice. The reason may be

its origin, grounded in evolutionary thought dismissed out of

hand. It may also be that there is a trade-off between child pro-

tection and the stigmatization of step-parents As for the first

possible reason, miscomprehensions and misgivings about

genes and behavior have probably prevented the dissemination

and adoption of such vital knowledge being put into practice by

those working in child protection. If this proves to be the case

then the most significant child homicide prevention measure we

can propose is that those working in child protection, such a

social workers and health visitors, be educated about this re-

search and thinking as part of their training, and that the associ-

ated guides and literature incorporate it as a matter of urgency.

Our plea to wider criminology, and most importantly to those

practitioners charged with protecting children, is therefore, the

same. In order to understand and prevent violence evolutionary

thinking needs to be embraced.

Violence against Women

According to the 2009/10 British Crime Survey (BCS) seven

per cent of women aged between 16 and 59 years in England

and Wales were victims of domestic abuse, compared with four

per cent of men (Hall & Innes, 2011). The majority of the vio-

lence was described as “non-sexual” abuse by a partner. Al-

though only fourteen per cent of the total 2,087,000 violent

incidents estimated by the BCS for that year were described as

domestic violence, those that collected the data are careful to

add a caveat proclaiming that equivalent figures have been

found to be up to five times higher where participant “self-

completion” had been used instead of the BCS “face-to-face”

method (Hall & Innes, 2011).

Our point is that it is the consensus that the prevalence and

frequency of domestic violence are far greater than recorded

crime statistics or the BCS suggest. Domestic violence is ubiq-

uitous and as such if we are working to prevent violence than

we can best make inroads by focussing on intimate partner

violence. For example, a study in England and Wales (1995-

2000) showed that 30 per cent of all the homicides were ‘femi-

cides’. Moreover, 57 per cent of these female victims were

killed by an intimate (or ex-intimate) male sexual partner

(Brookman, 2005).

How can an evolutionary informed violence prevention

strategy help reduce domestic violence? The first step, as al-

ways, should be to try and understand what is going on. Let’s

start with why men might go to war?

Tooby and Cosmides provide an exquisite evolutionary psy-

chology of warfare where they ide n tify four esse ntial conditions

that must be met for adaptations to evolve that allow for initiat-

ing such coalitional aggression as war. They call these condi-

tions “the risk contract of war”—we draw the reader to their

first condition: The average long-term gain in reproductive

resources must be sufficiently large to outweigh the reproduc-

tive costs of engaging in warfare over evolutionary time.

(Tooby & Cosmides, 1990)

The most likely candidate is an increase in copulations as

men have a great deal to gain if the result of engaging in war

results in substantial increase in reproductive access to women.

As Buss phrases it,

“Although few wars are initiated solely with the stated intent

of capturing women, gaining more copulations is almost always

viewed as a desired benefit of successfully vanquishing an en-

emy” (2004: p. 298).

The work of Chagnon in his study of the warfare between the

Yanomamö villager tribes lends support to this argument,

where it was found to be nearly always linked to reproductive

access to women (see Chagnon, 1983 for a very interesting

anthropological study). We cannot resign the use of violence by

men to secure female reproductive access to “less developed”

societies. The mass rape of females by the victors has been an

established part of warfare throughout history, with for example,

the Norman invasion of 1066, in the first and second world

wars, and in the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. It might not

be the primary motivating factor for men going to war but se-

curing access to women is certainly part of the promise of re-

ward. The point being made, as it has been throughout this

publication, is that males (especially young ones) will do

whatever it takes to access females, regardless of the risks in-

J. ROACH ET AL. 401

volved.

Male “sexual jealousy” is the most frequently given explana-

tion for intimate partner violence (Dobash & Dobash, 1979;

Daly & Wilson, 1988; Buss, 2000, 2005; Goetz et al., 2008)

and so will only be briefly mentioned here. For example, Polk

refers to male on female violence as being primarily motivated

by “jealousy/control” on the part of the male (1994: p. 18). Put

simply, men appear to use violence against women as a tactic to

restrict their sexual behaviour. Primarily as means of enforcing

sexual (i.e. reproductive) “exclusivity” (Daly & Wilson, 1988;

Wilson & Daly, 1996; Buss & Malamuth, 1996). For example,

Fiona Brookman found that more than 80 per cent of femicides

occurred where the female was either planning to leave her

partner, or where he perceived her at least to have been “un-

faithful” with another sexual intimate, thereby compromising

sexual exclusivity (Brookman, 2000). Some suggest that vio-

lence against women is best understood as being “a behavioural

output of male sexual jealousy” (Goetz et al., 2008: p. 67).

Occasionally, that violence is lethal resulting in female homi-

cide (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Polk, 1994).

The foremost writer on this topic from an evolutionary per-

spective is Anne Campbell. Campbell makes the observation

that in trying to explain the gender difference in crime the

male-centered approach has dominated evolutionary psychol-

ogy, where there appears to be a broad consensus that the mo-

tivation to achieve status and ‘surplus resources’ is more criti-

cal to male than female reproductive success (Campbell, 2002,

2009). However, where a female-centered approach is instead

taken a different perspective on male on female violence is

achieved;

“Her most important proximal goal is to stay alive because it

is she who, given 100 per cent maternal certainty, limited re-

productive years and high replacement costs, has most to gain

by ensuring that her offspring survive” (Campbell, 2009: p. 124).

Reproduction (and therefore, by virtue, sexual intercourse),

poses more of a risk to female safety and survival than for

males (Campbell, 2009). Lew and colleagues rather eloquently

describes this as a male-female genetic arms race in which fe-

males must evolve defences against the lethal potential of the

sex drive of males (Lew et al., 2006).Intimate partner violence

being one such defence as when women kill it is more often

than not an intimate (or previously intimate) partner that is the

victim (Daly & Wilson, 1988).

So very briefly how can evolutionary thinking contribute to

preventing domestic violence against women?

The most obvious answer is that women who experience

domestic violence should be encouraged not only to report it as

soon as possible, but they must also be able to access immedi-

ate help, in order that they and their children “stay alive”. Re-

search has consistently shown that a significant number of fe-

male victims of domestic homicide have experienced domestic

violence previously (Wallace, 1986; Campbell, 1992; Smith et

al., 1998). Lethal domestic violence against women being often

the final tragedy in a long-running sequence of violent and

emotional attacks by an intimate (or ex) partners. Mercifully, in

the UK campaigns encouraging women to report domestic vio-

lence have been frequent and with some degree of success,

hopefully exemplified by the year on year increase in recorded

domestic violence incidents. Spousal homicide reflecting an

extreme manifestation of the same basic conflicts that inspire

sub-lethal marital violence on a much larger scale (Daly &

Wilson, 1988; Brookman, 2005).

The important finding domestic violence is generally perpe-

trated by males against female sexual intimates planning to

leave them is also crucial with regards preventing violence

against women. Research showing that a substantial proportion

of femicides are connected to separation (or the threat of) sup-

port strongly the idea of male sexual proprietariness and the

need for males to control female reproduction (Daly & Wilson,

1988).

We may not be able to predict on an individual basis whether

domestic violence is likely to occur in specific households, but

evolutionary thinking has highlighted when it is most likely to

occur and who is the likely perpetrator. Such knowledge must

be used to prevent the escalation to lethal violence by, for ex-

ample, making it easier and more practical for women to leave

their violent partners without fear of reprisal, as we know plan-

ning to leave is common flash-point in violence by men against

women. We give Daly and Wilson a deserved last word;

“Killing is just the tip of the iceberg: For every murdered

wife, hundreds are beaten, coerced and intimidated. Although

homicide probably does not often serve the interests of the per-

petrator, it is far from clear that the same can be said of

sub-lethal violence” (1988, p. 205).

From Just So Stories to Evidence-Based Crime

Reduction

Perhaps the first task is education of the next generation of

criminologists. This is no small order given the accumulated

hostility, sociological and religious and the complexity of mod-

ern evolutionary biology, whose mastery is a necessary condi-

tion of defensible contributions on violence prevention made by

criminologists. Some are tentatively introducing Darwinian

thinking into their books (see for example Wortley, 2011) but

they are rare, and the present writers stress their own inadequa-

cies in treating with evolutionary biology writings. The Catch

22 is that the points of possible connection have to be simple

enough to be comprehensible to a skeptical audience, which

makes them vulnerable to accusations of superficiality and the

Just So criticism. So what is presented below is a set of possi-

bilities ranked from those which many criminologists may per-

haps be prepared to consider to those which are currently re-

garded as difficult and alien.

A further complication is that those measures which have

most often proven effective in violence and harm reduction are

situational in character, and hence are best addressed in the

more sophisticated outcrops of Darwinian thinking. Laland and

Brown (2002) distinguished four major contemporary ap-

proaches; human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology,

memetics, and gene-culture co-evolution. The latter two adopt

the meme concept, i.e. the unit for carrying cultural ideas, sym-

bols, or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to

another, cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate,

mutate, and respond to selective pressures. Changes in crime

tactic memes co-evolving with thresholds of inclination to ag-

gress will certainly be necessary for short and middle-term

variation in manifestations of violence.

Returning to a desensitization process for criminologists,

three stages may be envisaged.

Defense mechanism analogies. Just as the products Smoke

J. ROACH ET AL.

402

Cloak and Smoke Bandit simulate the defence tactic of the

squid, and the panic alarm can be regarded as equivalent to

alarm calls, are there other analogues? Is defecation an effective

last ditch tactic to avoid rape? Are there diversionary tactics to

avoid attack on one’s family equivalent to birds feigning injury

to divert predators from the nest? In what circumstances are

mimicking less vulnerable species (as the hoverfly the wasp)

relevant in avoiding violence (see Felson, 2006 for some sug-

gestions), Interesting criminologists in such questions may

invite derision from evolutionary biologists, but may be a use-

ful hook for criminological interest, and can be presented

purely as what they are, namely no more than analogies.

Bootstrapping on current interests. Places differ in their

proneness to crime, including violent crime. One key variable

appears to be the permeability of residential areas. Cul-de-sacs

(particularly sinuous cul-de-sacs) are massively less prone to

victimization (Johnson & Bowers, 2010). Intuitively this is

because people enter such roads because they live there or to

visit. The have a reason they can express or defend. In evolu-

tionary psychology, Dunbar’s number. Robin Dunbar (1992)

surveyed village and tribe sizes and settled on 150 as the esti-

mated size of a neolithic farming village; 150 as the splitting

point of Hutterite settlements; 200 as the upper bound on the

number of academics in a discipline’s sub-specialization; 150

as the basic unit size of professional armies in Roman antiquity

and in modern times since the 16th century; and notions of

appropriate company size. In short, he concluded that 150 was

the neocortex-limited community size. Dunbar thinking could

be applied to people recognition patterns by street network and

layout to determine how they linked to patterns of assault and

other victimization. The second writer was unfortunate to be

present at a meeting of geographers and social scientists at a

prestigious university at which the Dunbar number was intro-

duced, to ill-deserved derisive laughter.

A second possible avenue of infiltration is surely due for the

trialing of child protection work on kin selection principles and

Daly and Wilson research.

Getting serious, this would consist of agent-based modeling

of gene-meme coevolution models to assess fit to distributions

of violence by time, place and person (see Cavalli-Sforza &

Feldman, 1981) for background. Such an approach would revo-

lutionise criminal career understanding and preventive sen-

tencing—but that would require persuading judges about evolu-

tionary understanding of crime. That is perhaps a bridge too far

to contemplate now.

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