My Review of "Inside the Criminal Mind"

Samenow's Inside the Criminal Mind is an odd book to review. Samenow, a research psychologist, says criminal behavior is 100% voluntary. It is a product of disordered thought patterns that are almost entirely congenital. Poverty doesn't cause crime, Samenow claims. Nor do bad parenting, peer pressure, drug use, or any of the other "standard excuses". Some kids are born anti-authoritarian thrill seekers and will remain so pretty much no matter what. The only hope is to get criminals to intensively examine their thought patterns, and change them through sheer force of will.

Originally written in 1984, I have to wonder: Is this book merely a product of its time? That is, does it represent the best of the cultural thinking that went into personal responsibility and individualism that was so rampant in America in the mid-1980s?

Because, let's be honest: Inside the Criminal Mind has a glaring problem. To quote another 1980s cultural artifact: "Where's the beef?" After having finished the book, I never saw the evidence to Samenow's argument. There are plenty of charts and graphs. But we never really get beyond the anecdotal evidence: Bill, a 23 year old shoplifter, and Leroy, a 30 year old drug dealer.

I'm in the process of earning my degree in Emergency Management, so it would be nice to see the numbers, the statistical studies, that support Samenow's thesis. And Inside the Criminal Mind left me wanting more.

I think criminality has a lot more to do with personality than most academics. But I've long enough to know that we can't entirely dismiss environment. Not in the way this book does.

Inside the Criminal Mind is a bracing read, make no doubt about it. But its idea needs a second look. Because I think Samenow's answer here is just too simplistic.

I received this book free, from the Blogging for Books program, in exchange for my honest review.

Comments

My Review of "Home on the Range"

Ruther Logan Herne's Home on the Range is a novel about the Double S Ranch and Nick, who is raising his two daughters by himself. I found the characters to be very realistic. The setting is wonderful and I loved to read all the struggles of each person. It makes it more realistic and easier to read and believe. Elsa is a wonderful character. I love that her past is a secret until the end of the book -- which, itself, is very well written. I was very pleased with this contemporary cowboy read. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "The Tea Planter's Wife"

Dinah Jefferies' The Tea Planter's Wife is a fun novel that vividly depicts the 1920s. Gwendolyn Hooper, her 19-year-old heroine, speaks for an empire-branded breed of gutsy young British women who left the security of England to embark on extraordinary adventures abroad. Not the back-packing, "lonely planet" travels of today, gap-year kids constantly connected with the folks back home via internet and smartphones, and usually safely and predictably back home for good inside a year. Girls like Gwen married men who made their living and fortunes out in the colonies -- or what until very recently had been colonies -- and went out to join them, standing shoulder-to shoulder with their husbands to face down hardship, danger, disease, monsoon, drought, and not least the simmering and sometimes murderous resentment of locals. That makes The Tea Planter's Wife so much more than a love story -- it's a recognition that girls like Gwen had guts, and c...

My Review of "Misfit Faith"

Jason Stellman's Misfit Faith: Confessions of a Drunk Ex-Pastor was not quite the book I had expected it to be. It was so much better! Jason Stellman was a Presbyterian pastor, but he became a Roman Catholic. I expected Misfit Faith to be, therefore, a semi-autobiographical work of Catholic apologetics. I read of Scott Hahn's mentorship of Stellman, and expected Misfit Faith to be a new, milder version of Hahn's scholarship. But I did not see any defense of Peter being the first pope in Misfit Faith , or any criticism of Sola Scriptura, or an explanation and defense of the Catholic understanding of justification. Instead, I read the story of Stellman's own spiritual journey. From the opening confession that Stellman had flirted with Christian universalism, I knew this wasn't going to be a Catholic apologetic. I wouldn't even characterize Misfit Faith as an apologetic at all. Because if there's one thing Stellman isn't sure on...

The Mrs. & the Minister

Search This Blog