The same evolutionary and ecological principles that organize our understanding of organisms and organic communities can be used to help understand criminal behavior and our responses to it. This approach suggests solutions for an important dilemma that confronts the United States. The dilemma is that preoccupation with problems such as gang violence, drug abuse, and street crime increasingly diverts resources and attention away from child development problems associated with the health, education, and welfare of young people. Just as a consensus is emerging about the importance of balancing traditional criminal justice system approaches to crime control with nurturant approaches that address child development concerns, child development program resources are dwindling. This dynamic is driven by a vicious cycle of media sensationalism, political expediency, and public impatience that encourages ineffective “quick fixes” for crime. An evolutionary ecological approach to crime control suggests ways to reverse this vicious cycle and increase the political, programmatic, and economic feasibility of child development programs.

There is a growing tension between two apparently irreconcilable trends: (1) demographic projections that world population size will reach 10 to 11 billion by the middle of the next century; and (2) scientific estimates that the Earth's long-term sustainable carrying capacity (at an “adequate to comfortable” standard of living) may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion. It is past time to develop internationally coordinated sociopolitical initiatives that go beyond slowing the growth or stabilizing global human numbers. After “inescapable realities” that humans must soon confront, and notwithstanding the considerable difficulties involved in establishing “global population optimums,” I conclude with several suggestions how best to bring about a very significant reduction in global population over the next two to three centuries. These proposals are cautiously optimistic.