Book Review: So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

A fascinating read, still highly relevant today in our digital world. This covers the evolving issue of ‘public shaming’ and it’s growing significance in the online community via social media. We see people ruined, professionally and personally, over one photo, one comment or one ‘tweet’. 

It certainly made me think about my own online presence, and how I already actively hold a lot of my life back from overexposure online. That pack mentality can destroy everything, without any kind of barrier or behaviour to hold it back. Human nature can be very cruel, and overly zealous, especially when there are no sensors or rules in place. I was particularly struck with Lindsey Stone, who posted a distasteful picture of herself holding up the middle finger outside a war memorial. One silly action from a young, foolhardy girl led to her being fired from her job as a carer, and hundreds of thousands of death threats and vitriol from strangers online who knew nothing about her. Now she will be forever remembered for that picture, that mistake, and constantly haunted by the image online. It will effect her future, and we see her struggle with accepting this and trying to move on. The use of so called ‘reputation rebuilders’ was also really interesting, as they try and hide this negative outpouring by manipulating Google. 

I did find some sections a little ‘out there’, and not entirely relevant to what Robson’s was trying to get across (ie the group therapy stuff, which just came across as odd and out of place), however the overall message is clear. I liked the small section on prisoner rehabilitation particularly interesting (both through therapy, and alternative sentencing). 

A decent read on an insightful topic.

Book Review: My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World's Most Violent Men by David Wilson

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

My Life with Murderers is a reflection by renound professor of criminology David Wilson on his time as governor and assistant governor at a number of British prisons and the numerous encounters with murders he has had along the way. However, it’s also more than that, as it follows Wilson’s musings on  what it is to be a murderer and the various types of murderers there are, from spree and hitmen to serial and beyond. 

It’s clear that Wilson knows his stuff. Without having read any of his previous novels, it’s clear that he has years of experience dealing with various psychopaths and murderers and knows their personalities inside and out. He takes a more scientific approach compared to his American contemporaries too, relying more heavily of the psychology of victims and evidence based practice compared to ‘one off interviews’ and showman ship. It’s a refreshing and more reliable approach to others I’ve read (ie John Douglas, who gets a sound dressing down here). 

I liked the mix of murder types described here, and felt the book did a good overall job at addressing various types of murderers and how they came to commit them, with a mixture of individual and social circumstances. In particular, I liked Wilson’s account of a documentary he made interviewing Bert Spencer, the man accused of murdering Carl Bridgewater. During the course of making the documentary, Wilson came to the conclusion that Spencer was a classic psychopath and goes into great depth to explain why he thinks this, and why and how he thinks Bert came to murder Carl. I’m now desperate to watch the documentary to see the final confrontation between the two. 

I also thoroughly enjoyed the little titbits into prison life with Charles Manson (I laughed out loud at the, in all honestly, bizarre scenario of Manson threatening to stab the prison guards with his mustache while stark naked and covered in shoe polish) and a ‘Furries’ convention that Wilson inadvertently ended up getting in the mix with. I would have enjoyed some more of these personal insights, as they added some much needed light relief to a heavy topic. 

This was a great addition to the true crime genre, and takes a true academic approach to the general audience. A refreshingly British read, and I’ll certainly look to this author for further reading.