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A review by klpurcell
The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths by Pat Brown
1.0
There were many things wrong with this book. The first one being that the author thinks she is the only one to have had these "groundbreaking" views of how the criminal justice system does not work. Had she an education that would lend itself useful to her chosen career path, she would know that scholars have been aware of the many issues she brought up, and have been trying to fix the system for decades. She is not revolutionary.
The second issue I had with this book was that the author contradicted herself many times, which takes away from her credibility. I feel like, after what she said about how it is necessary to have all the information about the crime possible to come up with an accurate profile, profiling crimes without police cooperation should not be done. Yet she profiled two crimes without police cooperation. Why bother profiling at that point? Not to mention her credibility takes a hit when she admits her only degree is a liberal arts degree. Perhaps she should have gone back for psychology or criminology?
My final bone with this book is that, if she is to be believed, every person in the world is a psychopath. The two best examples are from her time as an American Sign Language interpreter for emergency rooms. One man mimicked one of his friends, pretending he had sickle cell anemia. He would do this to feed his drug addiction. According to our "professional profiler" this makes him a psychopath. According to educated individuals, this makes him a drug addict. The second example is a girl who claimed she was raped daily, then when the doctors were not in the room, would act like nothing was wrong at all. Psychopath. Or, dealing with a traumatic event or, more likely from her explanation, and attention seeker. Not everyone who lies is a psychopath, something someone should tell this inept profiler.
The second issue I had with this book was that the author contradicted herself many times, which takes away from her credibility. I feel like, after what she said about how it is necessary to have all the information about the crime possible to come up with an accurate profile, profiling crimes without police cooperation should not be done. Yet she profiled two crimes without police cooperation. Why bother profiling at that point? Not to mention her credibility takes a hit when she admits her only degree is a liberal arts degree. Perhaps she should have gone back for psychology or criminology?
My final bone with this book is that, if she is to be believed, every person in the world is a psychopath. The two best examples are from her time as an American Sign Language interpreter for emergency rooms. One man mimicked one of his friends, pretending he had sickle cell anemia. He would do this to feed his drug addiction. According to our "professional profiler" this makes him a psychopath. According to educated individuals, this makes him a drug addict. The second example is a girl who claimed she was raped daily, then when the doctors were not in the room, would act like nothing was wrong at all. Psychopath. Or, dealing with a traumatic event or, more likely from her explanation, and attention seeker. Not everyone who lies is a psychopath, something someone should tell this inept profiler.