Criminal critters?

Factual Questions
1

So here’s my weird-ass question for the week.

Past interactions with prison inmate populations as well as those who serve or tender them, i.e., law enforcement personell, prison guards, psychologists, social workers, etc. have lead me to understand that the majority of repeat offenders and long-time inhabitants of our “correctional” systems consistently exhibit sociopathic behaviors.

What are, in this context, sociopathic behaviors? As I understand the meaning, this describes asocial or antisocial behavior. As Little Nemo has described it to me as a result of his observations as a Captain of the Watch at a State Prison in New York, it’s an ethos guided by the mantra, “What’s in it for me?”

Well, then, we know that in the highly socially developed environment that humans occupy, where charity and good graces (thankfully) persist, there are those who cannot think of others, or their impact on them, when they indulge in selfish behaviors.

Then I must wonder; are there rogues in other societies? Insects, in particular bees and ants, come to mind. Are there bandido worker ants that’ll mug a good boy with a big crumb on the ant trail? If so, what’s he do with it? Take it off for only him and his buddies to share? Bring it on in to the nest to claim it as his own contribution to the lair? Fence it at the ant equivalent of an East 11th Street pawn shop?

There are all kinds of critters within whose existence we’ve long since identified social hierarchies: elephants, chimps, whales, dogs, etc. Do they have criminals?

2

Excellent question. I’ll leave it in GQ until it becomes GD material.

-xash
General Questions Moderator

3

I couldn’t confirm with a quick google, but I recall reading that in elephant herds, the old monarchs are an important force in teaching proper behaviour to young elephants. And when hunters kill off all the matriarch suddenly, various of the young-uns show anti-social tendencies like bullying and stealing food from others.

I’m not eating where you eat! :eek:

4

I believe chimps have been observed engaging in “anti-social” behavior.

5

IRRC, crows and ravens will at times hold a “trial” against one of their unit/flock members, and if things go badly they will slay the offender.

6

See the movie Advocate for info on human trials of animals (donkey sentenced for sex with a man, repreived at last minute, pig on trial for murder).

I have seen discovery type shows discussing chimp behavior which includes theft and rapes.

7

There are indisputably ‘rogues’ in animal societies.

They don’t exist much in bee and ant societies because within those societies the workers are largely sterile. Being sterile there is no genetic advantage for an individual to go rogue, it can’t produce any more offspring as a result. In fact going rogue will endanger it’s own genes in the sense that no fewer individuals will be produced that at least share some of its genes. So unsurprisingly cheating behaviour is uncommon in social insects simply because it’s been selected against. Having said that there are occasions when ants, wasps and so forth will engage in revolution where the old queen or queens will be overthrown and a new queen installed from eggs laid by the workers. But that’s about as close to cheating a sit gets for insects.

Amongst social mammals and birds cheating is rife. Theft is the standard amongst these animals. I can’t even think of one species of social mammal or bird where theft isn’t the norm. Whether seagull, chicken, wolf, lion, hyaena, horse or rabbit if a submissive animal discovers some food and a dominant animal wants it the dominant animal takes it. If the submissive refuses to surrender it willingly it will be beaten and if necessary killed.

Sexual cheating is also the norm. Submissive male wolves, gorillas and so forth will always attempt to mate with the females if given the chance. The females will also quite often allow this to happen and take steps to hide the act from the dominant males. Male dolphins, many birds, apes, seals etc all routinely subject unwilling females to forced sex, what would indisputably be rape if it occurred in human society.

Then we have examples of animals lying, such as where roosters will issue false alarm calls to try to fool hens into believing he is acting as an effective guardian. Or where monkeys will issue alarm calls to get other monkeys away form food that they want.

I think that rather than asking whether any animal societies have rogues it would be far simpler to ask what societies DON’T. And quite frankly I can’t think of any aside form the social insects and possibly mole rats where sterility has produced a situation where cheating has no survival advantage. For all reproductive species cheating is the norm.

I think the reason you ask the question is because you don’t fully appreciate that animal societies all function on what would be considered sociopathic principals in human society. Theft and sexual domination of the weak by the strong is so normal in animal societies that you expect it and don’t even recognise it for what it is. All dogs are muggers in the sense of stealing whatever food they ant whenever they possibly can. Everybody who has had anything to do with dogs knows that but we don’t always register that mugging, bullying and theft are normal daily occurrences in dog society.

8

Didn’t one of Jane Goodall’s chimp mothers have her baby die, and she went crazy and stole other babies and killed them?

9

I don’t recall that the event was triggered by having her baby die, but the female Passion and her daughter Pom killed and ate the babies of several other females.

The events are described in this paper (starting pg. 11) Warning: pdf!

Bolding mine.

This page mentions those attacks, as well as another incident of cannibalism:

Bolding mine.