Book Review: Whether to kill: The cognitive maps of violent and nonviolent individuals

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016816657136
• Author: Gina Scott Ligon
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

the path forward we have only two options: rely on science like a map or rely on instinct (p. 107).

Benforado is quick to discredit past efforts to integrate science with the legal system while also

advocatingfor renewed efforts to do so the verysame thing—they got it wrong,but we will get it right.

Benforado’s Unfair represents an open acknowledgment of science—especially social science—

by a lawyer and scholar. The zeal with which Benforado embraces the scientific literature and

advocates its integration into the legal system is in many ways extraordinary. Although there are

flaws in his work that suggest a less-than-robust scientific literacy and philosophical framework, he

is neither a scientist nor a philosopher of science. Moreover, the book is not targeted toward an active

scientist audience. This is not to say that researchers have nothing to gain from reading Unfair—

Benforado’s concluding part focused on reform, in particular, is ripe with ideas for research projects.

The primary audience who would benefit most from a reading of Unfair is comprised of students and

practitioners of criminal justice and law as well as a popular audience interested in criminal justice

issues and reform. Benforado is a deft writer, and the content of Unfair is easily digestible. Benfor-

ado’s message is simple: The current criminal justice system in the United States is flawed, not

because of diabolical intent, but because it is composed and managed by people—people who tend

to think, remember, and feel in certain ways that can lead to injustice. Lady Justice may be blind, but

if we are to have a system of justice that coalesces with our ideals, we must actively blindfold

ourselves.

References

Alexander, M. (2012). The new jim crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NY: The

New Press.

Benforado, A. (2015). Unfair: The new science of criminal injustice. New York, NY: Crown.

Burch, T. (2015). Skin color and the criminal justice system: Beyond black-white disparities in sentencing.

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies,12, 395–420. doi:10.1111/jels.12077

Eberhardt, J. L., Davies, P. G., Purdie-Vaughns, V. J., & Johnson, S. L. (2006). Looking deathworthy: Per-

ceived stereotypicality of black defendants predicts capital-sentencing outcomes. Psychological Science,

17, 383–386. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01716.x

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Dornschneider, S. (2016).

Whether to kill: The cognitive maps of violent and nonviolent individuals. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

Press, 328 pp. $79.95, ISBN 978-0-8122-4770-1.

Reviewed by: Gina Scott Ligon, University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA; Rodney Scott, Southwestern

Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, OK, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016816657136

In her first book Whether to Kill, Stephanie Dornschneider applied the methodology of cognitive

mapping analysis (CMA) to study the beliefs that differentiate violent from nonviolent individuals.

Fluent in several languages, the author courageously spent 2 years recruiting individuals across

violent and nonviolent activist groups in Germany (nonviolent were the Socialist German Student

Union and Kommune 1; violent were the Red Army Faction and Bewegung 2. Juni) and Egypt

(nonviolent were Muslim brotherhood; violent we re al-Jama’at al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad). The

author independently interviewed 27 individuals across these seven groups and constructed cogni-

tive maps based on her own textual analysis from these interviews. The author developed a unique

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