In this episode, I speak with Dr Evelyn Svingen who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham and a reluctant evolutionary criminologist. Her book Evolutionary Criminology and Cooperation was published in 2023 and won the European Society of Criminology Book of the Year award.

We speak about: evolutionary criminology, human nature, misconceptions and strawmans about evolutionary criminology, Evelyn’s Reciprocity and Retribution model, which she developed during her PhD at Cambridge University, and behavioural economics games. Evelyn argues that we should include all levels of analysis, including evolution, to understand crime. Ultimately, Evelyn calls for interdisciplinary empathy and epistemological humility.