Societal Evolution and Criminality: A Parsonian View

Consensual crimes predominate in the crime data of most countries, and consensual crimes are similarly motivated cross-nationally. These two assumptions not only justify comparisons of crime rates from one contemporary society to another, they also suggest that evolutionary studies of changing rates and types of criminality can be meaningful. Talcott Parsons, not usually thought of as a criminologist, provides a perspective on societal evolution that may explain why crime rates tend to rise and why adolescents and females tend to be more conspicuous in the crime statistics of more developed societies. Specifically, personality systems, cultural systems, social systems and behavioral systems become more autonomous in the course of societal evolution. This means that, unless a successful integrative process occurs, each system is capable of increasing crime and altering its character.