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Few social problems are more urgent or enduring than that of malevolence: a presence and a destructive force decisively shaping our lives and that of our nation (Goldberg, 1996). Murder in the
United States, for example, has climbed dramatically in the last two decades, surpassing rates for similar crimes in every other industrialized nation. We as behavioral scientists have not fulfilled our mandate to the general public to provide meaningful explanations and solutions to our nation's social problems. At the present time there are no firm theories for understanding the etiology of malevolence; as a consequence, there are no effective educational, preventive, or treatment programs for persons most susceptible to the expression of malevolent behavior. In short, malevolence, despite its pervasiveness, is a poorly understood behavior (Goldberg, 1996).
In surveying the spectrum of pervasive brutal intrusion, assault, and violence, we glean from reports of those we clinically treat and from the mass media, we are compelled to wonder about a perpetrator's sense of entitlement to commit heinous acts. A person must possess a sense of legitimate right in order to violate society's most entrenched taboos. If so, where does this sense of entitlement come from? Is it simply the product of individual and family dynamics or a greater susceptibility than usual to destructive societal forces?
Robert Simon makes a distinction between malevolent criminals and nonmalevolent ones—what are the decisive factors that shape the personality development of their respective personalities? And once a malevolent personality is formed, what maintains it? Competent answers to these questions seem to be crucial if we are to understand the development of the malevolent personality. The author has written a lucid, interesting, detailed, and knowledgeable book about a wide array of malevolent criminals and psychopaths, and he devotes considerable discussion to psychopathic psychotherapists. Unfortuna