Inside the Criminal Mind

By: Stanton Samenow

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's Summary

Long-held myths defining the sources of and cures for crime are shattered in this ground-breaking book - and a chilling profile of today's criminal emerges.

©1984, 2004 Stanton Samenow (P)2014 Listening Library

Great insight!

I really enjoyed this book because it offers the listener a contrasting view of the causes of criminal behavior.

For me personally, it had allowed me a better understanding of offenders that, despite many opportunities for change, they continue to make poor decisions. I recommend this book for anyone in corrections.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Dr. Samenow explains the persistent criminal mind

Dr. Samenow step by step explains how people can have a criminal mindset and how this mindset leads to crimes against society,defined by when one person takes from another through deceit or force. Societal crimes are committed all the time even though many are never prosecuted. This book also explains how people can live in society succesfully and appear to act good though the intention is always to put themselves at the center of focus with the hidden negative goal of using and exploiting others. This total narcissism is completely void of ethics or morals applied to their own lives , they know what is right and wrong but believe that they themselves are a law unto themselves, that they are special and entitled to take whatever they want without suffering the consequences . They believe arrogantly that they can take as they seem fit, be it your personal affects or even your life. This criminal mindset is the basic philosophy of all people who commit crimes be it stealing an old ladies purse to mass shootings. Dr. Samenow writes other books that follow and expand on the ideas in this book based upon decades of studying and researching criminals from the bluecollar who pillages a retirement fund to serial killers. This book helps ethical people to change their perspective and to understand that the criminal in not crazy, that no matter what tactic is used by the criminal to avoid responsibility their goal was always to exploit others to feed their bottomless pit of everything is about me. These criminals are always on the con and being as they have an entitlement attitude they do not believe that they bad people so they do not see why they need to change. Dr. Samenow explains that the thinking and attitude of the criminal must change before the behaviors will and that is why most criminals find no incentive to change; why should they change when most of the time their manipulations work for them. Dr. Samenow convincingly proves that from parents who coddle their abusive children to courts that give mere slaps on the hand as consequences for crimes committed , we as a society need to change on multiple fronts to change the Criminal Mind.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Eye Opening

Extremely helpful and up to date. I highly recommend this book to anguished parents who are trying to cope with their adult child's aberrant behavior.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Great, but sometimes flawed information

Would you try another book from Stanton Samenow and/or Mark Bramhall?

Maybe if it was more limited on its scope. I understand Samenow's approach to what causes crime, especially after decades of being exposed to criminals. However, he is quick to dismiss things out of his personal experiences when research supports those things. If he sticks to his own research and doesn't try to poorly attack others, I think I would.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

It was his (and Yokelson's) research and experiences. I would say 80% of his book was fantastic, the 20% is described in the comments below.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Yes, but the narrator quickly became a huge distraction when quoting things inmates say. Every inmate had the same annoyed whiny voice that was quite distracting.

Could you see Inside the Criminal Mind being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Absolutely not.

Any additional comments?

Overall I think most of what he has discovered is absolutely fantastic in terms of research into criminal behavior. However, there are some large issues I have with this book:

He quickly and selectively dismisses many, or all other, criminology theories of crime. It is as if he has a selective and biased view towards them and doesn't quite fully understand what they, how they came to be, or that they are not meant to be 100% explanations of all or most crime. It is really hard to dismiss those theories since they have all gone through much research and study, not to mention have been replicated numerous times as well. Those did not come from some yahoo in his basement who wanted an excuse for crime, they came from highly educated and experienced people who genuinely found more than just correlations.

He also appears to trivialize certain things, such as terrorism and those who possess child pornography (suggests those who only possess child pornography be paroled and not jailed when they actually contribute to the more serious crimes being committed to get the pornography). Not really sure why he gets involved this much into the criminal justice system when he is a psychologist.

Needs to stay away from the rock star superhero psychic profiliers as references for certain information.

I think his research is fantastic if he were just staying in his lane. He should approach as just a psychologist, nothing more.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Damn that was good!

As soon as I finished the book I immediately started it again! This will change your thinking about criminals!

I LOVE this stuff

I love this stuff..which is why I've rated this book a 5...of course, taste is subjective.

Well read, some great information. I have NOT tagged as finished as this is a great reference book...I need the hard copy now!!

gec

do read!

incredible, in-depth analysis of the criminal mindset. must read for anyone in the justice field!

Inside the criminal mind

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

if the author took only one topic at a time. it is not only confusing but it doesn't go anywhere.

Would you ever listen to anything by Stanton Samenow again?

Maybe not the book was boring.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I liked the topic of the book but disliked how they explained the topic.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment because it a book with no background i don't see how people could view this book being interesting it is very boring.

An sincere effort to enter a criminal mind

It is an sincere effort to understand criminal mind.The author puts all his experience to tell us about criminal mind.May be the brain functions in such a complex manner that it is difficult to decipher all its patterns.
The remedies suggested are practical and with lots of common sense.The book is read well to keep up the interest in the subject.

If you're looking for a new religion, maybe.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Nothing can save this book, it is antiquated and assumes that everyone convicted of a crime is a criminally minded human being that like an alcoholic can never recover only maintain. Ironically at that: considering that when it's time to discuss reformed convicts supporting convicts that need to reform. The author claims that method/way of thinking to be equal to saying that a person who has been to a dentist can perform dental work. A terrible analogy in the first place made far far worse by suggesting that a human is so non-dynamic that their behavior is like a tooth, once it's broken it's broken forever. It may in fact be harder to deal with than a tooth in so much as we cannot remove it when all else is failing. To suggest in the face of the resent case studies from programs in the prison system where success begets success is ludicrous.

Would you ever listen to anything by Stanton Samenow again?

I wouldn't waste this much time on anything else written by Samenow. I was wondering at points in this book if this might not be a pen-name behind which Debbie Downer, Eeyore, and Rush Limbaugh are co-penning at the behest of some executives in private capital that are heavily invested in maintaining or increasing the prison population.

What didn’t you like about Mark Bramhall’s performance?

If this has been less of a life and death topic for so many people I would have thought this was hilarious satire. He reads it with tones that are unbelievable. If the book uses 95% truth to try to create a straw man arguments by presenting correlation as causation, then then Mark's reading of it balance is out to 50% facts 50% bullshit by adding in ridiculous intonations.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Inside the Criminal Mind?

To completely discount everything in the book as made up would be easy, considering the few raw data points that I know anything about were off by magnitudes. The one that stuck out most to me was Bernie Madoff. The author claims Madoff defrauded his clients of "millions of dollars." Not even 10's of millions or 100's of millions when in fact the damages were in the "billions." Also something like fraud has cost elderly people as much as 11 million dollars in one year and citing AARP. I don't care to sit here and research it, but really? $11M? It's probably in the many 100's of millions.

Any additional comments?

If you're even vaguely hopeful of change, don't read this book and if you read it anyway, think of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., if they had believed that changing people was impossible, where would the world be today? This is a 30 year old book poorly revised to fit today's criminals. It should be pulled off of the shelves of book stores and archived for research on the flawed thinking of yesterday only.

3 of 10 people found this review helpful