But it’s so amazingly fascinating. I don’t even think that’s proper English… I’ve been reading up on criminals to make my bad characters more believable. After being completely disturbed and revolted by Profilers: Leading Investigators Take You Inside the Criminal Mind as edited by John H. Campbell and Don deNevi, I moved on. Sheesh. That book was worse than an episode of Criminal Minds. And didn’t even have the funny bits with Garcia. It also didn’t really give me a good idea of how people think/work as criminals–it just made me scared to ever go out of my house again. Apparently, people who stalk, rape, torture, and then chop people up into little bits cannot be stopped and are everywhere. Great. So not even The Mentalist can save me?
On the other hand, Inside the Criminal Mind by Stanton E. Samenow was amazing. I read the updated 2004 edition. Not sure I believe everything he says, but still… I like the idea that it’s the way people think that controls their behavior, and that everything we do is a choice. His argument says that criminal behavior has little to do with how you’re raised or your background, and has everything to do with how you think about the world and your place in it. He seems to make allowances for the fact that clearly people who are raised around gangs and in threatening neighborhoods are more at risk for certain types of behaviors, and that the pattern of abused/abuser holds fairly true, but he also points out that there are plenty of people who were raised in at risk homes and emerged as successful members of society. I love the emphasis on choice. I’m all for a quirky turn of fate now and then and I could really go in for karma if that were true (because doing something bad is a choice, just like doing something good is, right? So why not be punished/rewarded for those choices by Fate? Makes total sense to me…) But destiny and fate shouldn’t be able to just run amok all over me… I’d like to have some say in how my life turns out.
The thing that really confused me, however, was that he claims that it’s not genetic–or, rather, that people aren’t born criminals either. I’m a little confused on how he explains where this criminal method of thinking and behavior comes from, but that might be in another book. My point is that he’s given me some excellent ideas for character traits. Even so far as to point out what their world view is and how their issues can manifest themselves physically. It’s brilliant.
Of course, on a side note, Samenow’s whole theory put me in mind of another book about thinking and behavior… So a la 1984, wouldn’t his argument mean that if the criminals’ thinking was determining their behavior, then wouldn’t their language then control their thought…? Because I’m a firm believer in that idea. I realize that so much more goes into the brain rather than just words, but our thinking is based in language. Does this mean that criminals have some sort of change to the language center of their brain? It’s not just intelligence or education–Samenow’s data suggests that it doesn’t matter how smart or not the criminals are for them to think this way–so is there perhaps something inherently “wrong” with that part of the brain that controls language? Would that support the genetic argument? Hm. Then exactly how does he, as a psychiatrist, go about changing that thinking? He gives one example in the book of a success story by his mentor, Samuel Yochelson, but that’s only one. And I would completely agree that wanting to change is another choice–the first choice, as Samenow points out–and is by far the most important. He basically says that for some criminals, there is no hope, and we would do well to make them comfortable in jail, away from society, rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on rehabilitation and job training… I’m telling you, it’s fascinating. Where have I been all this time? Why aren’t more people aware of this theory? Does it just not work? Has it been proven wrong too many times? Sigh. I’m telling you–research is just too distracting.
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