NCJ Number
116359
Journal
American Journal of Sociology Volume: 94 Issue: 3 Dated: (November 1988) Pages: 465-501
Date Published
1988
Length
36 pages
Annotation
Many forms of deviance and crime, including expropriation, can be viewed as normal expressions of diverse behavioral strategies.
Abstract
Expropriation is defined as any behavior whereby one individual usurps resources that another individual has produced or appropriated. Since social scientists have not explained how and why 'normal' individuals in unexceptional social environments deviate and commit crimes, the author contends that developments in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology provide new insights on how deviance and crime result naturally without necessarily implying genetic influences. Criminal behavior by which offenders expropriate goods or services from others is interpreted as an expression of diverse behavioral strategies that results from normal patterns of social organization and interaction. This view accommodates explanations that focus on individual causes of crime and those directed toward social factors. Basic concepts of behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology are defined. It is shown how these explanations account for behavioral diversity in animal populations and how suitable modifications permit the concepts' expansion to human population. Following a discussion of factors that promote expropriative crime, the emphasis turns to how expropriative strategies are acquired. 70 references. (Author abstract modified)