Does societal evolution over decades and centuries produce ordered changes in characteristics of crime victims, offenders, and events? Does the average offender become younger? Does the male-female offending rate ratio decline? Does the victim-offender overlap increase? Is there a shift in the typical motive or victim-offender relationship? Does retaliatory violence decline? I propose that a society’s average or modal victim, offender, and event characteristics exhibit systematic trajectories over time that are (1) correlated with its stage of development and (2) similar in value to, or follow parallel trajectories as, characteristics in nations at comparable stages of development. The Criminological Transition Model provides an organizing framework for understanding how long-term societal development affects the nature of crime. Central to the model are the building blocks of crime – victims, offenders, and events – and how they change predictably over centuries. Societal evolution shifts the axes around which humans organize: Technology progresses, economies shift, states increase control over citizens and commerce, human rights mature. In turn, families become smaller, age at first birth increases, adolescence is extended, average education rises, population mobility increases, people live longer. Surely crime victim, offender, and event characteristics respond to these fundamental changes and follow systematic pathways over time.