Criminal rehabilitation, or any kind of rehabilitation for that matter

They don't write true crime books about the average criminal, though, do they?

Well, the ones I'm reading are about motives, general criminal psychology, and profiling. I went through the famous serial killer phase last summer.

It's a hard case -- suffice to say that it seems like it would have to be a combination of high security and earnest attempt on the part of social workers -- however defined -- to help someone out of the horrifying place they're in, mentally. But based on our prison system I can't see where that kind of balance would exist, it's too weighted to the first part of the equation and not the second.

the profiling industry is kinda based on the idea that people are programmed for life to do absolutely everything they actually end up doing, and that provided you are paid enough with the right letters after your name you could have spotted them in advance

sadly the only people programmed to want to get the these letters after their names are also programmed to be complete smug idiots, if the ones who appear on UK TV are anything to go by: isn't the problem with criminal psychology as a discipline that it has built-in loops of unscientific prejudice-confirmation, and kinda "doctors" its data in order to generate more affirmatory guinea pigs? ("doctors" is too strong, obv: i doubt it's conscious... but it strikes me there's a vicious circle built into its structures, like management consultancy)

"better safe than sorry", at least if pursued fanatically, has bad consequences also: not least that you will also end up pre-punishing types-who-will-always-be-poor/drug-drawn for their supposedly inescapable tendencies

(possible flaw with my argt: it is the line hannibal lecter takes in "silence of the lambs")

It just seems to me:

1. that such books, and (especially) the teevee and the tabloid press talk about violent crime as if were much more common than it is and about violent criminals as if they were the average criminal, at least partially because it makes for more "compelling" consumption than the sad tale of some junkie who'll smash your car window and steal your camera and whose drug-sick and nervous the whole time;

2. that the interest in "compelling" subjects is also pretty damn common in universities, leading folks working on their doctorates to look for sexier subjects; and

3. at least in the States, the question of "Who's paying for this research" has to be asked, because there's money to be made from a sense of fear and hoplessness vis-a-vis "violent criminals" (the prison industry, weapons manufacturers, home security companies, the pharmaceutical industry, etc.).

One perk of working for a university is going to lectures (no, I'm serious). I went to a superb one on psychopathy not too long ago. This was about genuine psychopaths, not those diagnosed by people who don't know what it means on the basis of their crimes by the recognised psychiatric tests. Psychopaths are not automatically dangerous or criminal - but psychopaths in difficult circumstances will be far less likely to stick within social and legal bounds. In case anyone doesn't know, psychopathy is a condition caused by damage to a tiny area of the brain that enables the reading of emotion on others' faces: without this ability from a young age you do not become properly socialised, and fail to grasp the effects of your actions on others. Damage later in life can still remove the ability to see emotion, but by then socialisation is in place so the bad effects don't manifest.

There is no treatment of any use: so far every treatment tried for violent psychopaths makes things worse - the lecturer said that the holy grail for people working professionally in this area is a treatment that doesn't make things worse!

This physiological stuff is far from most true books. It is a genre in which you are as likely to find idiocy and the smug simple-mindedness that Mark mentions as any genuine insight. I can think of two true crime books worth anyone's time, thought - obviously Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, plus Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field, far less feted but not at all far behind.

Martin - yes, that sounds like this one book I'm reading. It's about psychopathy as a handicap, and it's called 'Without Conscience'.

dad was a fornesic social worker who belived heavily in rehabhilltion as the purpose of incareration. he used to lend foccult to his charges.

I should say that because there is as yet no non-bad treatment for psychopathy, I still think rehabilitation should be the primary aim of any incarceration - but at present it's not always possible, let alone likely.

What % of the general population is psychopathic? What % of the criminal population? Who came up with the stats? grumblegrumblegrumble.

'This was about genuine psychopaths, not those diagnosed by people who don't know what it means on the basis of their crimes by the recognised psychiatric tests'

But how did they know that tho

Sorry, Dave, there was a word or two missing from the sentence you quote, turning it into gibberish. I meant that the lecture was about those diagnosed by recognised psychiatric criteria (there is an established scale against which people are marked for psychopathy); I was opposing that to criminals who are simply labelled psychopaths by the ignorant - often lazy journalists - with no psychiatric evidence at all.