Customer Reviews

Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist

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Richard Rhodes is an outstanding writer as anyone who has read "The Making of the Atom Bomb" can attest. His writing is well researched, clearly written and often hard to put down.

His latest book, " Why They Kill : The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist" is an eye opener. Criminologist, Dr. Lonnie Athens new approach to understanding violence in humans turns some psychiatric theories upside down. His discoveries originated from his own extremely violent background. Athens claims that rapists, violent killers (including serial killers) know what they are doing and why. To the majority of us it is incomprehensible that anyone would commit such heinous acts with what appears to be little or no provocation. He shows, by example, how those who have gone through what he calls the four stages of violentization, think and react.

Athens states that if an individual is interrupted at any stage before he or she has gone through the fourth stage of violentization, the individual can be reformed. However, once the fourth stage has been completed, there is no hope of redemption.

What lends a particularly reactive note on the part of the reader is the inclusion of well known personalities and their individual stories of violentization. Athens describes the backgrounds of Mike Tyson, Alex Kelly, Lee Harvey Oswald and other infamous characters. He also points out how and why soldiers were affected by the violence during the Vietnamese war and its aftermath.

Toward the end of the book Athens suggests how the cycle of violence can be broken. The cycle was broken in time for Athens and for Rhodes, who was also on his way to a violent outcome. Their redemption was serendipitous. For the majority of those who are on the road to violentization and are not so lucky, society must intervene in order to prevent the terrifying result.

I regard WHY THEY KILL as the most important book on the mind of the criminal since Dr. Hervey Cleckley's monumental study of psychopathy: THE MASK OF SANITY. Unlike self-ordained crime guru and speed-writer Joyce Carol Oates, who damned this book with her customary hauteur in the New York Times, I have been studying violent criminality at close range for 50 years, and Richard Rhodes showed me something valuable and new on every page. His ability to explicate and illuminate the most complex processes is in the tradition of great journalists like John McPhee, Gail Greene, Norman Mailer, Joseph Mitchell, Shana Alexander, James Stewart and Fox Butterfield. I hope this book gains Richard Rhodes another shelf of well-deserved awards.

I've read a fair share of the latest crop of books on the topic of violence and the criminal mind, and this book is in the top five. Rhodes has done a stellar job in presenting the theories and findings of criminologist Lonnie Athens. I'm in contact with some of the country's worst criminals - those that sit on Death Row. This book has been most beneficial in understanding the hows and whys that landed these people there. If you're interested in understanding how the criminal mind works and want to read a book that you can actually understand and process, this is the book for you. Written for both the professional and the layman, this is a wealth of insight into what makes a mind go criminal, and why violent actions result. Excellent work, Dr. Athens - you have my highest praise. Oustanding writing, Mr. Rhodes. I look forward to your next work.

I agree with the comments of Mr. Olsen. Lonnie Athens' ground-breaking work on the developmental process of violent criminals--which he calls "violentization"--is lucidly described by Rhodes. The book is fascinating and logical, supported by Athens' field work and personal experience. Human evil is rooted in human experiences and this book is a refreshing antidote to mystic speculations on why people commit "unthinkable" crimes. I've read numerous books on crime and violence and almost never end up with a clearer understanding of the motivations of violent actors. I discovered this book by happenstance at a small bookstore in Michigan and did not read the review in the New York Times Book Review. This book deserves a wide audience. I did not find it dry at all.

It may sound odd to talk about violence as an "overlooked topic," but as much as we talk about it and read about it and watch "real life" cop shows, Americans don't really do much thinking about the real causes of violence. It's easier to enjoy the drama of good vs. evil, to revel in our moral superiority to violent criminals while taking a morbid interests in their deeds.

"How can people do this sort of thing?" is the question every time there is another heinous murder or massacre.

Well, the answer isn't really all that mysterious, if you buy what Rhodes and Lonnie Athens say (and by and large, I do). I find Athens description of "violentization" compelling, and it matches what I've personally experienced. I've met plenty of nice people who somehow survived horrible childhoods, but I've never met a horrible person who had a nice childhood.

Rhodes is a wonderful writer, and his presentation of Athens' life and theories is deft.

My only problem with the book is that Rhodes and Athens focus so exclusively on socialization as the root of violence that they overlook neurologic issues. I actually got to talk about this with Rhodes online, and he disagreed, but didn't convince me. Head injuries and alcohol intoxication clearly play a major role in violent crime, and Athens seems so bent on awakening us to the process of violentization that he downplays or ignores this.

In fact, it's not an either/or -- people who are abused and brutalized as kids usually get more than their share of knocks on the head and are more likely than average to be from alcohol-abusing families.

But in a field where so little light is shed, you don't have to have the entire puzzle to get my vote. This is a terrific book, and should be read by anyone interested in the subject.

This book contains the criminologist, Lonnie Athens' compelling new argument about the process that creates violent criminals. The media frequently portrays criminal violence as senseless or inexplicable, while psychology explains it with theoretical models that are incomplete and often incorrect. Athens explores the creation of violent criminals from a sociological perspective but avoids the traditional method of statistical examination. Instead, Athens takes an analytical approach by interviewing convicted violent offenders and extracting common modes of thought and behavior from their testimony. The result is a compelling theory of "violentization", which is the term Athens uses to describe the socialization that ordinary people experience before they become violent criminals.

Violentization is a process that involves several steps. Generally a person experiences brutality, humiliation, helpless exposure to someone else's victimization (personal horrorfication), violent coaching, and a violent personal revolt against real or perceived aggressors. By the time a person goes through this process the person's violent socialization is largely complete. Athens explains that socialization isn't so much a response to one's community but a response to a perceived or "phantom" community that is based on the person's experiences, memories, and recurring conversations from the past. When individuals experience violentization they develop a violent phantom community which influences their response to events in their lives. When these people resort to violent behavior they are not doing so in a senseless or medically deficient fashion, they are simply responding to a different moral framework and set of rules than individuals who haven't experienced violentization. The implication of this theory is that (1) there is a logical reason for violent behavior, and (2) the socialization of violent behavior is preventable.

"Why They Kill" offers compelling evidence to support Athens' theory. First, the author, Richard Rhodes examines the lives of several famous violent offenders and explains how they underwent the process of violentization. Even more compelling is Rhodes examination of violent behavior in different cultures throughout history. Rhodes concludes that in many historical situations and in many cultures, violent behavior was normal, and violentization was a means of preparing children to survive in a violent world. Rhodes explains that in recent history the state developed a monopoly on violence and compelled individuals to operate their daily lives in a non-violent manner through legal and cultural mechanisms. However, in many cases, this "civilizing" process has failed to take place-most notably in violent families (including Athens' and Rhodes' families), or in violent communities such as the South Bronx.

Equally as interesting is Athens' own story. Lonnie Athens grew up in an abusive household and in a violent neighborhood. His father routinely beat him and his brother but never touched his sisters. From an early age Athens developed a keen insight about violence including the fact that the behavior of abusive parents is often thoughtful and selective. Athens' father once told him that if Athens ever ran from a fight then he would beat him senseless, but if stood his ground, the father would back him up all the way. In this instance, Athens' father provided him with violent coaching. He trained his son through beatings, exposure to violence and direct training to survive in a violent world. Athens' credits his escape from the cycle of violence to the chance intervention of friends and community members and to his fortune at never having resorted to criminal violence in his youth.

Lonnie Athens' theories are some of the most powerful and compelling descriptions of human behavior I have ever encountered. In addition to providing a plausible and often provable explanation of violent behavior, they raise many questions about its prevention. For example, think of how two different religions, Christianity and Buddhism approach the subject. Christianity provides a moral framework which if properly adhered to or enforced supercedes the process of violentization (turn the other cheek, thou shall not kill). Buddhism compels people to question their perception of reality. If all attachments in life are illusory then presumably one's violent phantom community is also illusory and one can break the cycle of violence. The implications of Athens' work are both frightening and hopeful.

I listened to Why They Kill in an unabridged audio version and, because it is an exceptionally good book, came to Amazon to purchase the hard copy. This is one of those books which presents a new paradigm which will be greeted by some with great interest and others with great resistance. I'm encouraged to see that most of the customer reviews are of the former type, and am adding my voice because I believe that this ideas presented need to be heard at all levels of our society. As a neurologist, I believe Dr. Athens' theories are entirely consistent with the what we know of learning processes and behavior, and as a mother I believe that they are entirely consistent with what I've seen in my children's world. Dr. Athens' methods cause much of the peer criticism which has hindered his work, and I find it interesting that the methods have much in common with the old fashioned medical history of the patient, which is still, even in this day of modern medical science, sometimes the only way to get to the bottom of a problem. Richard Rhodes makes an enormous contribution to Dr.Athens'. work by placing it in the context of human cultural history. His discussion of the Vietnam experience is heartbreaking. Read this book and, if you find it valuable, encourage someone else.

I am a psychologist working in a maximum-security prison. This book introduced me to Athens' work. I am incorporating his ideas both into our treatment methods for offenders and our screening tools for parole and Community custody evaluations. Athens' work, described so well here, answers many questions, offers tools for distinguishing the truly dangerous criminal from the petty, and suggests avenues for research and treatment that will keep us all busy for the next 50 years. Well worth the trouble to read.

I'm probably not the most dispassionate critic of this book since my own childhood involved exactly the pattern of violentization that sociologist Lonnie Athens theorizes. That caveat aside, Athens' theoretical framework for the processes that create violent criminals is a classic model. That he has been so ignored by the academic discipline in which he has invested his life reflects very poorly on contemporary sociology.

Richard Rhodes has done a marvellous job of laying out Athens' life story and his academic work. What really jumps out at the reader is the simple elegance of Athens' theory -- violent criminals are the product of a definable process of deviant socialization. It is also unusual in that Athens also clearly demonstrates that the latter stages of this process are driven by the criminal him or herself.

Joan Didion's review of this book in the New York Times was risible. If you read Rhodes' book, you will eventually wonder whether Didion is delusional or so ideologically constricted that we cannot entertain any reasonable hope that her criticism will be based in fact.

Lonnie Athens has paid a terrible price for his willingness to run exactly against the grain of contemporary sociological methodology. But he has trumped his peers with an insight into the formation of violent criminals that will turn the study of criminology -- and, eventually, public policy -- on its head.

This is a biography of a criminologist (Lonnie Athens) who doesn't buy the "born bad" theory of criminology. Rhodes writes a personal and intellectual biography (the two are inseparable anyways) of a man who grew up in a violent home but didn't end up in prison. He carries his narrative of Athens' life and works past a mere recounting of the criminologist's experiences and writings by comparing Athens' findings with other classic studies of violence, often finding in what appear to be contradictory studies evidence of the truth that Athens uncovered by his unconventional approach of actually interviewing men and women who had committed violent acts. This book is for the politician and the voter who is looking for fresh and pragmatic insight into the problem of murder, rape, and assault.