This book is a thorough analysis about the thinking pattern of criminals. This author starts out with a chapter by removing what he sees as barriers to the proper understanding of what he calls "the criminal mind" or "the criminal personality." He then uses the rest of his chapters to advance his arguments as to how our current paradigm of the thinking processes of criminals do not work. This author backs up his arguments with research as well as with his own experiences in dealing with criminals. He attributes this criminal mind-set to all stripes of criminals, whether they are violent offenders or nonviolent offenders or the nature of their crimes. This is a revised and updated edition of an earlier edition. This author closes this book by providing an actual case study of a nontraditional means "to change a criminal" and he dedicates his book to the personal he calls the pioneer of this method. He closes this book with end notes for each chapter.
I expected this book to be an in-depth analysis of criminals. It is that, but I didn't count on how this psychologist profiles criminals. I found myself mentally rebutting some of his claims about the lack of any mitigating factors in criminals' backgrounds that can explain (not excuse) their actions. I applauded his blowing the "child abuse" defense out of the water, as I see it used in way too many cases. It seems strange that many criminals bring up sexual abuse in their histories, often for the first time ever. This defense has been mounted for some high-profile murder cases when any evidence of these criminals' past victimization is slim to none. Samenow clearly dismantles the widespread idea that many criminals are victims, whether of past childhood scars, a messed-up system, poverty, injustice, impulses out of their control, or even (in almost all cases) mental illness. He argues from the fact that many responsible citizens come from the same backgrounds that criminals supposedly come from. I was disappointed that he didn't even allow for any "bettered partner" defense, and in his book, he blows out of the water any idea that many crimes are out-of-character "snaps" or "crimes of passion." While I applaud the fact that Samenow is doing much to extinguish the false compassion of criminals as "victims of unfortunate circumstances," I think that his reasoning is too much black and white with few gray areas. But, as a Christian, I know that his separating the "criminal mind-set" from the mind-set of the rest of us, is meaningless. In the theological realm, all of us are criminal. Though we may not act on hateful or covetous thoughts or desires that we entertain, we are just as criminal in God's eyes and we need the same grace in Christ to save us as criminals need. But this author doesn't profess any Christian faith. His details of his experiences are hard to dispute, while his bias is obvious from the beginning of the reading of this book.
I recommend this book for all lawyers, counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists who deal with criminals on a regular basis. I recommend this book for all those who deal with troubled child and juvenile offenders, as a means to give them insight into what the author calls the thinking processes of "budding criminals," as a way to try to prevent their charges from becoming "career criminals." I recommend this book for all those parents and family members who have loved ones who are offenders, to gain insight into their loved ones' thinking processes and to relieve them of guilt feelings that many of them may bear for their loved ones' choices. I recommend this book for Pastors, since it is a sad fact of this fallen world that we have criminals who hide out in our congregations.
I received a free copy of this book through Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest book review. I was not required to give a positive review of this book.
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