Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist

Athens and Rhodes had reason to be concerned about violence, for they come from abused backgrounds themselves. By listening to acutal violent people with some respect (instead of the psychiatric nonsense of deciding that anyone unlike a psychiatrist is automatically insane), Athens came to a simple conclusion: violent people are violent because violence works for them. It gets them what they want out of life. And the violent reach that conclusion by learning from the people around them.

So far, so good. I come from a poverty-stricken, violent background myself, and what Athens found rings true. But there's more to it.

It's no wonder that many psyciatrists view violence as insanity, for many violent people take huge risks for trivial gains -- or at least, that is how most people would view it. One has to wonder how these people view life. Athens never asks the kind of person who choses to deal with a rude party guest via aggravated assualt "Don't you think that was sort of dumb?"

Athens is apparently looking for a theory of all violence, but his answer overlooks the question of how violence ever got started in the world. If violent individuals are coached into violence by other violent individuals, who taught the First Violent Person how to behave?

Rhodes also biases things when he test Athens's theory against some famous murder cases. Rhodes examines the Clutter murders recounted in Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, and tells us how Perry Smith, who killed the Clutters, fits Athens's theory. He leaves out the fact that Dick Hickock, the other criminal, planned the crime, and included murdering all witnesses from the begining, or that Smith went along with the idea of robbery but didn't want to kill the Clutters. Smith's decision to kill seems to have had a large impulsive component, exactly what Athens's theory wants to totally exclude.

Of course, Athens isn't the only person to interview murderers. The FBI Behavioral Science Unit does it all the time. But because what the FBI has discovered doesn't fit Athens's theories too well in some cases, Rhodes trashes them, and quite unfairly.

And despite Rhodes's denial, there is evidence pointing to genetic links to violent behavior.

In sum, you can learn a lot from this book, but it's the latest contribution to the ongoing study of violent crime, not the final answer.


Brilliant   January 4, 2000
 29 out of 31 found this review helpful

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.


The starting point for a new era in criminal psychology   October 30, 1999
 18 out of 23 found this review helpful

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.


The Maverick hits the mark...   May 3, 2000
 15 out of 17 found this review helpful

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.


A Superb New Work by a Superb Reporter   September 17, 1999
 14 out of 15 found this review helpful

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.