Showing titles in Criminal & Forensic Psychology

On June 9, 2008, the butchered body of Travis Alexander was found in his Mesa, Arizona home. The grisly nature of his death made instant headlines: with twenty-nine knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head, Travis was left to die. The prime suspect in the case was Alexander’s...

Revisiting Dr. Michael Stone's groundbreaking 22-level Gradations of Evil Scale, a hierarchy of evil behavior first introduced in the book The Anatomy of Evil, Stone and Dr. Gary Brucato, a fellow violence and serious psychopathology expert, here provide even more detail, using dozens of cases to exemplify the categories along the continuum. The New Evil also presents compelling evidence that, since a cultural tipping-point in the 1960s, certain types of violent crime have emerged that in earlier decades never or very rarely occurred.

Brought to you by Penguin. Narrated by Kirsty King featuring the voices of Alix Dunmore, Sebastian Humphreys and Georgina Sadler. How can you tell if someone is lying to you? Is it possible to separate the truth from lies in what people say? And when should you trust what you hear? Everyone lies...

For decades, it has been assumed that the United States of America was the serial killer capital of the world. Now, criminologists believe that Russia (and previously the Soviet Union) has been, secretly, the biggest home of serial killers for almost a century. In Serial Killers of Russia, Wensley Clarkson reveals the inside stories and gruesome details behind the country's most notorious and previously unknown murderers. 

We all know what psychopathy is. Or, at least, we think we do. For decades, we have looked at psychopaths as something 'other': as monsters, or bogeyman. But psychopaths don't just exist on our screens - they exist in our communities, offices and, sometimes, in our very own families. The...

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story—they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

The plea of insanity in criminal cases can be traced back at least to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, which dates from 1755-1759 BC. It is a complicated defence, and its origins in modern law lie with the 'M'Naghten Rules' of 1843, formulated by British judges as a jury instruction in cases...

In August 2015, Limerick man Jason Corbett was murdered by his wife, Molly Martens, and her father, ex-FBI agent Tom Martens, in the bedroom of their luxury North Carolina home. He had been savagely beaten to death with a baseball bat and brick while his children slept nearby. For his sister, Tracey Corbett-Lynch, and the rest of his family in Ireland, it was just the beginning of the nightmare that would involve a custody battle, an online hate campaign, and, ultimately, the gripping trial that would lead to her conviction.

Is violence normal? Aren't they all evil? Does trauma cause violence? And can we change violent minds? For Dr. Gwen Adshead, these are the most common questions she is asked about her work as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in secure hospitals and prisons. Dr. Adshead pays attention to an aspect of humanity we often find hard to comprehend and invites us to do the same as she considers the motivations, the risk factors, the social roots of violence as well as the rehabilitation of offenders.

In this groundbreaking book, renowned psychiatrist Michael H. Stone explores the concept and reality of evil from a new perspective. In an in-depth discussion of the personality traits and behaviors that constitute evil across a wide spectrum, Dr. Stone takes a clarifying scientific approach to a topic that for centuries has been inadequately explained by religious doctrines.

On October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a White couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young Black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left 15 Whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race war.

Taking us from secure hospital wards to high-security prisons to courtrooms, Dangerous Minds offers compelling and deeply compassionate accounts of 10 people whose lives have been shaped by violence. From the impact of traumatic events in childhood to the evolutionary and cultural influences on the emergence of the social mind, this book is an insider's account of the origins of violence that asks its readers to re-evaluate all that they think they know about the people society deems most dangerous. 

And here I am. Totally alone in a cell with a convicted sex offender who is free to do what he wants. There is no officer. No handcuffs. No radio. Only the man across the desk and me. He looks more petrified than I do. HMP Graymoor. One of the UK’s most notorious prisons. Home to nearly 800...

Delve into the minds of real people whose actions may shock and stun you, but whose stories have the power to challenge your assumptions and the stigma that surrounds mental illness. I Don't Talk to Dead Bodies shines a powerful, emotional, and surprisingly moving spotlight on the fascinating life of a forensic psychiatrist and the people she works with. It goes beyond the sensationalist headlines to show you just what happens in a world where mental illness occasionally makes good people do bad things.

Human sacrifice still goes on uncomfortably close to home - cases have been found in the U.S., Europe, and the United Kingdom. In other parts of the world, such as South America, ritual killing is almost commonplace. Human Sacrifice investigates the terrifying current spate of human sacrifices and ritual killings. Jimmy Lee Shreeve draws on police reports and interviews with the victims' families to paint a horrifying picture of ritual sacrifice at home and abroad.

At the heart of countless crimes lie the mysteries of the human mind. In this eye-opening book, Dr. Cheryl Paradis draws back the curtain on the fascinating world of forensic psychology, and revisits the most notorious and puzzling cases she has handled in her multifaceted career. Her riveting, sometimes shocking stories reveal the crucial and often surprising role forensic psychology plays in the pursuit of justice - in which the accused may truly believe their own bizarre lies, creating a world that pushes them into committing horrific, violent crimes.

On July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. Soon twelve were dead and fifty-eight were wounded. A Dark Night in Aurora uses the twenty-three hours of unredacted interview transcripts never seen by the public and Reid’s research to bring the listener inside the mind of a mass murderer. The result is chilling, gripping study of abnormal psychology and how a lovely boy named Jimmy became a killer.

Working under California's Sexually Violent Predator Law, Samantha Stein, PsyD, faces such offenders alone, one by one, in a prison interview room. As a forensic psychologist, her high-stakes decisions can determine the difference between a life lived back in society or one condemned to indefinite incarceration.

Serial killers: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer are often the first names that spring to mind. Many people assume serial killers are primarily an American phenomenon that came about in the latter part of the 20th century. But such assumptions are far from the truth. Serial killers have been around for a very long time and can be found in every corner of the globe - and they're not just limited to the male gender either. Some of these predators have been caught and brought to justice whereas others have never been found, let alone identified.

In this audiobook is a unique, never-before-published look at the investigations undertaken to stop the depredations of America's most infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy. Presented here in an easy-to-follow chronology are the raw, unedited and most fascinating official case files as they appeared to the detectives from the Pacific Northwest to the Rocky Mountains to Florida.