A model of the development of juvenile delinquency from both a micro- and a macro-level of analysis is presented that focuses on the role of mythogenes, the “motivational structures of experience and longing,” and myths, “expressions of wishes and visions at the larger tribal or national scale.” Levi-Strauss first suggested that myths may provide the motivations for either social bonding to groups or withdrawal from normative groups. The author distinguishes between “mythogenes” at a micro-level and myths at a macro-level. Mythogenes are thought to impact the bonding of individual youths to either a delinquent or non-delinquent lifestyle while myths, which Freud claimed were an expression of a tribe’s social characteristics, are thought to impact large-scale criminality when individuals are no longer able to distinguish between their own longings and the visions of the larger society. The author applies the mythogenes analysis to the explanation of individual and group delinquency, with an emphasis on gang delinquency and prostitution, illustrating how mythogenic structures encourage the adoption of a delinquent disposition. The myth analysis is then applied to the macro-level crime problem of genocide, using the example of the Nazi regime in Germany to illustrate how the myth of anti-Semitism within German culture led to mass genocide. Figures, tables, notes, references