Taylor and Francis Roach, J: Evolution and Crime

Human physique and behavior has been shaped by the pressures of natural selection. This is the received wisdom in all scientifically informed circles. In this realm of thought, evolutionary psychology is arguably the fastest growing and most exciting perspective in social science. However, criminology has, so far, been resistant to this mode of thought, for reasons that include a perceived need to remain true to the tradition of human malleability by social context, the fear of racist eugenics, and a naive equation of natural selection with biological determinism. Given its fruitfulness elsewhere in biological and social science, it is only a matter of time before conventional criminology comes to be informed by the evolutionary perspective. This fascinating new book provides an 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