Final post on 'Why They Kill'

I have finally completed the book, "Why They Kill". I have to say that I have a completely new look on violent criminals, and why they participate in violent activities. I now understand more than ever, that what may happen to someone during early years in their life can determine part of their character.

One section in the book that caught my attention was the 'Dramatic Self Change' section reading. This explains that some people undergo traumatic life experiences that make them change their views and outlooks on certain aspect of life and how they want to live their life. This section says that their phantom community no longer supports them. Their phantom community then has to change to support their new way of thinking. This idea is still strange to me, I guess because you don't think of the inner dialogue you have with your self as a 'phantom community'. Maybe also because to me it sounds like the phantom community changes when you realize you want to be a different person, it seems like someone just changes their own mind, and doesn't confer with a community that doesn't really exist. Again, of course Athens and Rhodes are experts in this field, and who am I to think their ideas are strange, but I still have a hard time grasping the idea. I feel like more than anything Athens wanted to label, this inner voice as something else, to make it easier to talk about.

Examples of Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther are given in this section. Particularly Martin Luther had this drastic change in Phantom Community when he experienced a thunder storm and decided to change his profession to that of a monk.

The next section was very interesting to me. I had never given much thought to how the military could train normal people to become violent. This also helped me understand why statistically a large majority of serial killers/ mass murders were in the military. This section stated that unauthorized violence domestically is criminal violence. Rhodes wanted to further investigate how military organizations constrain organized violence.

This section claims that basic training breaks the person's previous phantom communities, and recreates the phantom community that the military wants them to have. Basic training acts as a dramatic self change for new recruits.

There was also an interesting study/story in which soldier were noted to not shooting their guns even when instructed to do so in battle. Some soldiers stated that when someone was watching they were more likely to shoot than when they were alone, or sequestered in battle. This shows that although the military may influence some to become more violent, it doesn't work for all. Rhodes thinks it doesn't always work because not killing and not being violent is seen as bad in our society. We are raised not to be violent people, so those people who were raised not to be violent and then the military trains them to be violent, don't fully accept what they are taught. However, this section claims that people who were brutalized when younger have a higher propensity to engage and further engage in violent acts during and after their military experience.

Also interesting, is that some soldiers listed the fear of killing and the fear of failure to be more than the fear of being killed.

The stories about Vietnam were purely appalling. What some of these men were asked to do, and what some of them did willingly...is something you only imagine happening in a fiction book. I appreciate the fact that these men were put through situation that were horrendous, and this influenced them to act in the way they did, I still can't believe that some of our military men did these things. And they live among us now! It is so sad that many of these men claimed they died in Vietnam. The mental and psychological damage that they went through is unimaginable to me. But the fact that our government subjected them to this and encouraged them to act in such outrageous violent ways, is atrocious. ( I would like to note that I am not anti-American government. Some of you might feel the same way after reading this part of the book. I love my country, but that doesn't mean that I think everything is perfect.)

This book concludes with a section on strategies and prevention control. I think Athens thoughts on how to solve some of these problems are very insightful. He says that you can't always control what happens in families, but you can control what happens in the schools, and that they are the best way to reach out and try to stop violent criminals before they develop.

One point that he makes in which I understand, but disagree(who am I to disagree with an expert right!?) with is that Christianity encourages child rearing brutalization. While I understand some of the extremes that he mentions, I do not believe spanking a child will make them a violent criminal. I was spanked as a child, and I am definitely not a violent criminal...flight would happen for me WAY before fight. My parents were spanked and even hit with belts, as were many people in my age group. I believe there is an extreme that he is speaking of, but he seems to be generalizing the whole idea and blaming Christians for it. I know people who aren't Christian who spank their kids, or hit them as punishment. Again I will not that I think there is a different between spanking, and beating a child. Beating a child for punishment is brutalization, and I don't understand how it couldn't be. Some of the things that he described as how children were punished is awful.

I also do not understand how some countries have more severe penalties for crimes and their crime rates be lower. I do not have statistics for this, but just a question of how Athens would approach answering this. He says that America has the highest crime rate because we have the most violentization of any other country.

He says there is also higher homicide rates at homes were guns are at. This is obviously true, and shouldn't be such a revelation. Vermont citizens do not have to have a permit to carry a gun, but they boast one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. This is also confusing to me. I am sure there are many other factors that play into not only the statistic, but why this is so. I wish I could have an explanation for that as well.

Overall I have to say that I learned much more than I thought I would from this book. I also thoroughly enjoyed reading it, minus the gory and gross stories. I respect Athens and Rhodes, their work, and their dedication to finding a way to stop the progress of increasing violent criminals being raised and released in our society.