"The New Evil" by Micheal Stone MD and Gary Brucato PhD

[almagata]

I just finished reading The New Evil by Micheal Stone MD and Gary Brucato PhD. 

I have read many true crime biographies and criminal investigation texts over the years and this book is quite different.  

The authors have devised a rating scale of evil with a decision making algorithm to assign numbers from 1-22 for various violent criminals.  I think we all, after reading about so many cases over the years, realize that some crimes are more heinous than others and the scale that the authors have devised helps quantify those feelings into a tangible scale to assign to a perpetrator. 

The lower scale numbers are assigned to people without psychopathy or narcissism who kill with motivations of self defense, jealousy, rage, or greed with little or no planning and who may have some degree of remorse.  (1-7)

The mid range of the scale are people who have planned murder but they did not prolong the suffering of their victims.  These killers may display psychopathic and narcissistic traits.  (8-14)

The highest range numbers in the scale are for people with psychopathy and narcissism who kill multiple people and/or who torture their victims.  These killers plan, scheme and fantasize and exhibit psychopathic and narcissistic traits. (15-22)

The scale looks at Self-Defense, Jealousy, Rage, Psychopathy, Multiple Murders/Vicious Acts, and Torture to assign the place in the scale. 

"The New Evil" is packed full of case summaries.  Many of the cases are well known but there is a chapter at the end titled "An Alphabet of New Evil" that has many short case summaries of cases that I was not familiar with.  I have to admit, this chapter was a bit over whelming and it took me a few days to read them all because it was emotionally draining.  I guess reading a single book about one case is not as soul sucking as reading about many cases, at least for me. 

I think the scale could be practical and useful for courts and probation in helping them predict who is most likely to re-offend if they were released from prison.  I don't know if that was what the authors were intending for the scale.   

The data highlighted in the book points out that serial killers, mass murderers, and spree killers were uncommon prior to the 1960's.  They try to explain why this might be due to cultural shifts but I'm not convinced that it true because many other countries have experience similar cultural shifts during that same time and have not experienced the same rise in serial killers, mass murderers, and spree killer incidents. 

Dr. Brucato has been a guest on quite a number of Youtube channels over the past couple of years and is very interesting to listen to.  He provides great insight into the character of offenders in both solved and unsolved cases. 

It is well worth reading if you enjoy true crime.