NCJ Number
234989
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 51 Issue: 3 Dated: May 2011 Pages: 535-555
Date Published
May 2011
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This research examines the connection between social circumstances that increase or decease homicide rates.
Abstract
Social science historians are discovering deep patterns in the history of homicide rates. Murders of children by parents or caregivers correlate inversely with fertility rates and appear to be a function of the cost of children relative to parental resources and to parental ambitions for themselves and their children. Murders among unrelated adults correlate with feelings towards government and society. These patterns may represent facultative adaptations to variable or unstable habitats (including social habitats) that may favor the nurture or neglect of children in the first instance, or cooperation or aggression among unrelated adults in the second. Human neural and endocrine systems may have evolved to facilitate such shifts in behavior. (Published Abstract)