Mindhunter- a review by Wendy C.
Profiles in Courage, February 2, 2004
an Amazon.com review
"Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit" by John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
John Douglas is a retired FBI agent who, along with collegues Rob Ressler and several others, developed a new strategy to catch some of America's (and the world's) most deplorable but elusive killers: Profiling. This new behavioral science took a look at a crime scene and the victim her/himself and after piecing these clues along with the clues left at similar murder sites, detectives were able to come up with a "profile" of the perpetrator of the crime. How? Because Douglas and others had gone to the heart of the matter: the criminals themselves. By interviewing them in prison, they were able to see why they killed, what drove them to it, their preferences, backgrounds, and fantasies. Often, the profiles were so eerily accurate that it seemed like witchcraft. Eventually, it was embraced by law enforcement and came to be a most invaluable tool for which all of us in society should be grateful for.
John Douglas describes his beginnings and his own story is as interesting as that of the sick men he later profiles for the reader. There are many insider-anecdotes for us to live vicariously through and plenty of bone-chilling (but not overly-sensationalistic) details of horrific crimes to keep us awake at night.
Luckily, a lot of these guys are locked up for life and some have even kept their dates with death (like America's most charming serial killer, Ted Bundy, who was fried on the electric chair after years of appeals and dozens of murders). But it's not that there aren't still antisocial personalities out there, waiting to explode; the apparent decline in such crime I think is due to men like Douglas, who have made studying these men his cause so that he can stay one step ahead of them. Also, Douglas and his contemporaries worked tirelessly for victim's rights and have made it possible to track cases all over the country via computer so that people can never get away with running away accross the country--to kill anew--ever again. (Bundy did just that, and because things like VICAP were not instituted yet, he went from Washington to Florida and killed more women in the southern state where no one had heard of the vicious killer.)
This book is not for the weak- it will scare you. But it is also an empowering way to look into the minds of the men (it's mostly men who turn into mass killers) who committed the crimes and become aware. I feel I learned how to "defend" myself at least psychologically.
And I consider John Douglas a real hero.
an Amazon.com review
"Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit" by John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
John Douglas is a retired FBI agent who, along with collegues Rob Ressler and several others, developed a new strategy to catch some of America's (and the world's) most deplorable but elusive killers: Profiling. This new behavioral science took a look at a crime scene and the victim her/himself and after piecing these clues along with the clues left at similar murder sites, detectives were able to come up with a "profile" of the perpetrator of the crime. How? Because Douglas and others had gone to the heart of the matter: the criminals themselves. By interviewing them in prison, they were able to see why they killed, what drove them to it, their preferences, backgrounds, and fantasies. Often, the profiles were so eerily accurate that it seemed like witchcraft. Eventually, it was embraced by law enforcement and came to be a most invaluable tool for which all of us in society should be grateful for.
John Douglas describes his beginnings and his own story is as interesting as that of the sick men he later profiles for the reader. There are many insider-anecdotes for us to live vicariously through and plenty of bone-chilling (but not overly-sensationalistic) details of horrific crimes to keep us awake at night.
Luckily, a lot of these guys are locked up for life and some have even kept their dates with death (like America's most charming serial killer, Ted Bundy, who was fried on the electric chair after years of appeals and dozens of murders). But it's not that there aren't still antisocial personalities out there, waiting to explode; the apparent decline in such crime I think is due to men like Douglas, who have made studying these men his cause so that he can stay one step ahead of them. Also, Douglas and his contemporaries worked tirelessly for victim's rights and have made it possible to track cases all over the country via computer so that people can never get away with running away accross the country--to kill anew--ever again. (Bundy did just that, and because things like VICAP were not instituted yet, he went from Washington to Florida and killed more women in the southern state where no one had heard of the vicious killer.)
This book is not for the weak- it will scare you. But it is also an empowering way to look into the minds of the men (it's mostly men who turn into mass killers) who committed the crimes and become aware. I feel I learned how to "defend" myself at least psychologically.
And I consider John Douglas a real hero.
posted by Spleengrrl @ 5:46 PM
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