Friday, January 04, 2019

Recognizing criminal behavior

As we try to understand how to recognize and treat criminals, we return to Stanton Samenow's book entitled Inside the Criminal Mind. These quotes are from his chapter entitled People as Pawns.

Jake, a 31-year-old lifelong criminal, boasted that he would bed down on his first date "whoever I can get my hands on." This was true enough, given the sleazy women he knew. But Lisa proved to be a stubborn exception. That she would only kiss and hug made her all the more tantalizing and Jake all the more determined. As he dated her, he persuaded Lisa that he was in love. In fact, Jake half managed to convince himself that he might enjoy marrying and settling down. Once he proposed marriage, Lisa's resistance to intercourse melted. Having scored sexually, Jake began to feel restless, then trapped by the impending marriage. Several weeks before the wedding, Jake vanished, never to be heard from by Lisa again. He had achieved all that he had wanted.

Later in the chapter, Samenow looks at the subject of rape.
...At stake in rape is the criminal's affirmation of his image of himself as powerful and desirable. The assailant believes that his victim already wants him or will want him once she gives him a chance. Her attempts to ward him off only heighten his excitement. Then he tries to reduce her to a quivering, pleading speck of humanity and helps himself to what he believes was rightfully his from the start. Brute force is rarely necessary because intimidation works.

...The criminal chooses to view people only in terms of their use to him. They are like property. From adolescence, when the criminal refers to "my girl," he really is asserting that she belongs to him, but considers her as disposable as an old tattered shirt. He does not develop a concept of what a love relationship entails. He may be charming, but rarely tender or considerate. He insists that a woman change to suit him, but he requires that she accept him just the way he is.

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