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Inside the Criminal Mind: Revised and Updated Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Stanton Samenow
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $14.91
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Avg. Customer Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 71736
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Rev Upd Su
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 140004619X
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.3019
EAN: 9781400046195
ASIN: 140004619X
Publication Date: March 30, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20080925221651H
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Product Description
In 1984, this groundbreaking book presented a chilling profile of the criminal mind that shattered long-held myths about the sources of and cures for crime. Now, with the benefit of twenty years' worth of additional knowledge and insight, Stanton Samenow offers a completely updated edition of his classic work, including fresh perceptions into crimes in the spotlight today, from stalking and domestic violence to white-collar crime and political terrorism.
Dr. Samenow's three decades of working with criminals have reaffirmed his argument that factors such as poverty, divorce, and media violence do not cause criminality. Rather, as Samenow documents here, all criminals share a particular mind-set--often evident in childhood--that is disturbingly different from that of a responsible citizen.
While new types of crime have grown more prevalent, or at least more visible to the public eye--from spousal abuse to school shootings--little has changed in terms of our approach to dealing with crime. Rehabilitation programs based on the assumption that society is more to blame for crime than the criminal, an assumption for which a causal link has yet to be established, have proved to be grossly inadequate. Crime continues to invade every aspect of our lives, criminal court dockets and prisons are oppressively overcrowded and expensive, and recidivism rates continue to escalate.
To embark on a truly corrective program, we must begin with the clear understanding that the criminal chooses crime; he chooses to reject society long before society rejects him. The criminal values people only to the extent that he can use them for his own self-serving ends; he does not justify his actions to himself. Only by "habilitating" the criminal, so that he sees himself realistically and develops responsible patterns of thought, can we change his behavior.
It is vital that we know who the criminal is and how and why he acts differently from responsible citizens. From that understanding can come reasonable, compassionate, and effective solutions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 50 more reviews...
 Helpful but not complete October 3, 2008
This book will give you some insight into how criminals think. It basically comes down to "criminal commit crimes because they want to." If you work with offenders or ex-offenders, this book is helpful but incomplete. Read some of the work by Chuck Colson and Prison Fellowship.
 Amazing Insight August 30, 2008
Dr. Samenow will enlighten you with the manner in which he approaches this topic. He is honest in his approach and will leave you with a profound understanding of how a criminal behaves and why. I found this book to be fascinating and a must read for those interested in this topic
 Please don't be impressed by titles.... judge by the writing. August 21, 2008
I honestly believe that the glowing reviews of this book have a great deal to do with the fact that the author has credentials that SHOULD lead to good research and good thinking. Please don't be overly impressed by the fact that this author went to Harvard, and blah, blah, blah. This kind of writing has to stand or fall on its own terms. I really can't believe how utterly fact-free all of the arguments are. There are virtually never any studies cited, not even single-case studies. Instead, there are only personal anecdotes about this, that, and the other criminal, and whatever was supposedly going through their heads.
The reason this book even deserves one star (well, aside from the fact that you can't do a zero star review here) is that it does indeed do a decent job of decribing people who really do have antisocial personality disorder. I work at a large mental health provider, and I've worked with ASPD folks. This DSM-IV-TR diagnosis is not meant to absolve the person in question from any responsibility for his/her behavior, either. It's not something that can be used as an insanity defense. I've also worked with people who were judged not guilty by reason on insanity at the time of their crimes. I can tell y'all that when it's properly used in the context of severely mentally ill people who had no contact whatsoever with reality when they committed a crime, it's a correct diagnosis, and a correct judicial ruling. However, psychosis is not the same thing as ASPD. If Samenow left his arguments at that, it might be okay, but he doesn't. And the leap in logic that Samenow indulges in here is really almost impossible to believe.
Yes, these ASPD-type characteristics do apply to certain criminals, but who *are* these criminals? How do we define them? How do we diagnose them? Is Samenow honestly trying to say that *anyone* who commits *any* type of crime is this kind of criminal? How on earth can he say that anyone who could ever be defined as a criminal actually has this kind of personality? This argument is so incredibly silly that it falls apart on its own when we actually look at it.
In summary, Samenow comes across as the kind of researcher who would have been, and was, a Reagan darling. To give him credit, he doesn't foam at the mouth to nearly the degree he'd have to in order to get chummy with Bush-type neocons. But he just doesn't do good research, and it shows in his writing. There is just no reason to be impressed here.
A classic on the criminal mind March 26, 2008
Great summery on criminal thinking. Much easier to read then original case studies were, but less information if researching for serious project.
Horrible, misleading, irresponsible January 4, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
This author has written a book that emphasizes an 'us and them' mentality as if criminals are completely different than other human beings. In his first chapter, he writes that no definitive factors have been pinned down in regards to what makes a person into a criminal. He mentions how others have credited biological, psychological and sociological factors but dismisses them, which is astounding in and of itself, without any intelligent reasoning. In his second chapter, he starts by writing that criminals come from all social backgrounds and all different type home environments. He has no clue. I am a clinical psychoogist who has worked in maximum security prisons and worked closely with many dangerous people. The VAST MAJORITY come from terrible backgrounds (poverty, broken homes, chaos, abuse, neglect, ganglife, crime-ridden neighborhoods) and for the author to dismiss this important finding is completely irresponsible and actually prevents people who geniunely want to understand criminal behavior from doing so. It perpetuates a 'these people are evil and they do bad things such as blah, blah, blah' - He emphasizes phenomenology and descriptions of what criminals do but illuminates virtually nothing in the process about what makes them who they are. He continuously emphasizes how all criminals have a choice and that they simply make the wrong choice to terrorize humans without any intelligent thesis to describe why they make bad decisions and how it's extremely difficult for felons to make what most people outside of correctional facilities consider 'good' decisions/choices. He has no understanding of unconscious processes at work in terms of criminal behavior. This might as well have been written by an FBI profiler who just describes what he sees like a short-sighted, dense behaviorist without an in-depth understanding of the real reasons why people do bad things. He is clearly biased against developmental factors and if he had ever spent any time in a real prison, which he hasn't, he would learn very quickly that there is more to a person than behavior and cognition. He oversimplifies, distorts, and ignores important contributing factors. If you like to maintain a narrow-minded 'us and them,' 'good vs. evil' mentality that serves no useful purpose except to promote ignorance, then read this book. It is awful and it's unbelievable that this quack has given talks on criminal behavior to audiences at all. We already know criminals do bad things and that they can be vicious and ruthless; the important question: why? is never adequately addressed and answered and, to make matters worse, he clouds the truth. I'm appalled that this man calls himself a clinical psychologist, although I'm not too surprised as so many other mental health professionals have begun to deny the primary contributor to criminal behavior - terrible childhoods - as it is not en vogue or in keeping with the fads of CBT and short-term, cost-effective treatments and their related theories - CBT has its place in short-term treatment and for reducing symptoms but doesn't compare or compete with developmental and psychoanalytic theory in terms of describing why people become who they are and why they do what they do, especially people labeled as criminals.
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