The Neurobiology of Nurturance, Evolutionary Expectations, and Crime Control

Bryan Vila has written an excellent analysis and rationale for the implementation of nurturant policies as part of a balanced approach to crime control. We support these humanistic recommendations, and are pleased to note that they are made by a street-hardened ex-cop whose tenure as a police chief presumably provided him with a firm grasp of the politics and economics of public policy. Vila's concern with demonstrating the feasibility of his policy recommendations, however, left him little room for an analysis of the scientific literature on the importance of nurturing (but see Vila, 1994). Our commentary is a review of such evidence from an evolutionary perspective and should be viewed as supplementary to the focus article.