Crime and violence are a growing problem in South Africa and have been typically explained as an outcome of high levels of poverty and inequality in the country, coupled with inefficient policing and the breakdown of social capital. The author takes a different point of view, claiming that crime and violence, while abhorrent, are not necessarily pathological but rather the outcome of human risk-taking behavior. In particular, the author postulates that crime may be an outcome of male intrasexual competition for female mates in a country with a high proportion of single males. To further explore this line of thinking, the determinants of crime in South Africa were estimated through the use of panel data on crime, socioeconomic and demographic information gathered from across South Africa’s nine provinces during the period 1996 to 2000. Results of dynamic regression models indicated that when the proportion of the population within prime reproductive age fell, the common crime predictors of poverty, unemployment, and inequality were not as robustly significant in determining crime in South Africa. In fact, the most significant variable affecting crime in South Africa was the proportion of young persons in a province’s population. The author concludes that crime is the outcome of male sexual strategy designed to improve their status in the eyes of females by engaging in risky behavior. Bibliography, appendixes, figures, tables