Book Review: DeNevi, D., & Campbell, J. H. (2004). Into the Minds of Madmen: How the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit Revolutionized Crime Investigation. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. 438 pp

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016807305973
• Author: Richard H. Hill
• Date: 01 September 2007
• Published date: 01 September 2007
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews
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the nature of police administration in other societies. Indifference to developments outside
the country is going to be costly and dangerous as highlighted by the planes crashing into
the twin towers.
Furthermore, the relationship between democracy and policing is also an important topic.
Good administration cannot be established unless citizens have a say in the affairs that con-
cern them. The poor image of police in the early days of United States suggests that a well-
established democratic polity where informed citizens hold their government accountable is
a necessary prerequisite for good police administration. The issues of police misuse of force,
racial profiling, lack of accountability, and politics cannot be understood unless the relation-
ship between police and democratic polity is understood. All the management theories and
leadership styles cannot reform police administration unless democratic functioning is well
established. The book fails to establish this linkage.
Arvind Verma
Indiana University
DeNevi, D., & Campbell, J. H. (2004). Into the Minds of Madmen: How
the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit Revolutionized Crime Investigation.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. 438 pp.
DOI: 10.1177/0734016807305973
There have been quite a few books written about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and its history, but few give insight into that extraordinary organization known as
the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) as does Into the Minds of Madmen: How the FBI’s
Behavioral Science Unit Revolutionized Crime Investigations. The introduction begins like
a Top 10 fiction detective novel and leads you into the topic of the book as if being led into
an Agatha Christi murder mystery. In no time at all, you are hooked and want to learn more
about the extraordinary people who inhabit the FBI’s BSU.
It is analogous to criminal justice students who watch the television show “CSI Miami” and
now want to study to do “forensic investigations”; the more you read...