Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder Book

"My goal," writes Donald Black, at the beginning of Bad Boys, Bad Men "is to educate readers about a serious but underappreciated health problem." This is the core of the book: an attempt to identify and describe a psychiatric disorder that goes undiagnosed in the vast majority of cases of anti-social men. Based on the study of men treated at the University of Iowa Psychiatric Hospital between 1945 and 1970, Bad Boys, Bad Men explores the connection between conduct disorder in boys and the chaotic lives of the men Black describes as "anti- social". The key to that connection is pattern: the anti-social does not break the occasional social rule but lives in a state of constant resistance to authority and norm--with predictable results in terms of economic, psychological and emotional poverty. Cautious when it comes to causes--some combination of gene and environment is proposed--Black is clear that the crucial predictor of ASP is conduct disorder in childhood. Aiming at the general reader, as well as professionals, he traces the common themes of ASP through his subjects' lives: chaotic childhoods, abuse, unemployment, addiction, violence and, sometimes, murder. More problematically, he supports the topical claim that ASP is a "lurking threat" to the fabric of cultural life through a wide range of high-profile cases of violence and murder: among others, Saddam Hussein, O.J. Simpson, John Gacy. But are these men really comparable? And how do you start to separate ASP as a specific disorder from the apparent prevalence of ASP symptoms?: that's the problem, and challenge, of this contribution to the study of criminal behaviour. --Vicky LebeauRead More