Mental Illness, Crime, and Violence
1. 
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
by:
Gavin de Becker
4.18 avg rating — 49,293 ratings 2. 
Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People
by:
Joe Navarro
3.89 avg rating — 2,754 ratings 3. 
Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness
by:
Alisa Roth
4.07 avg rating — 1,363 ratings 
5. 
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
by:
Robert Kolker
4.15 avg rating — 139,633 ratings 6. 
N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law
by:
Jody Armour
4.33 avg rating — 63 ratings 7. 
8. 
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
by:
Jon Ronson
3.95 avg rating — 155,561 ratings 9. 
The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family
by:
John Glatt
3.78 avg rating — 3,443 ratings 10. 
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
by:
Robert D. Hare
4.06 avg rating — 13,149 ratings 
12. 
No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America
by:
Ron Powers
3.87 avg rating — 4,179 ratings 
14. 
Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill
by:
D.J. Jaffe
3.67 avg rating — 187 ratings 
16. 
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
by:
Michel Foucault
4.09 avg rating — 14,198 ratings 17. 
Nobody's Child: A Tragedy, a Trial, and a History of the Insanity Defense 4.01 avg rating — 259 ratings
18. 
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
by:
John Grisham
3.86 avg rating — 82,844 ratings 19. 
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
by:
Beth Macy
4.07 avg rating — 44,187 ratings 19. 
The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions
by:
Helen Prejean
4.21 avg rating — 752 ratings 21. 
Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters
by:
Peter Langman
3.84 avg rating — 1,466 ratings 
23. 
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
by:
Sam Quinones
4.23 avg rating — 31,636 ratings 24. 
No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us 4.50 avg rating — 8,099 ratings
24. 
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms
by:
Maya Schenwar
4.42 avg rating — 1,113 ratings 26. 
When Truth Is All You Have: A Memoir of Faith, Justice, and Freedom for the Wrongly Convicted
by:
Jim McCloskey
4.36 avg rating — 757 ratings 27. 
Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness
by:
Pete Earley
4.27 avg rating — 3,993 ratings 28. 
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child
by:
Alice Miller
4.30 avg rating — 602 ratings 29. 
The Evil That Men Do: FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey into the Minds of Sexual Predators 4.04 avg rating — 2,858 ratings
30. 
Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering
by:
David A. Kessler
3.40 avg rating — 634 ratings 
32. 
Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
by:
Barry Meier
4.02 avg rating — 2,773 ratings 33. 
Restore your Dreamland : 17 stories on the mysteries, wonders and science of sleep
by:
Yasser Negm
4.80 avg rating — 10 ratings 
33. 
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
by:
Jonathan Rosen
4.03 avg rating — 16,361 ratings 33. 
Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum
by:
Mab Segrest
3.78 avg rating — 187 ratings 33. 
My Daddy Is a Hero: How Chris Watts Went from Family Man to Family Killer
by:
Lena Derhally
3.87 avg rating — 4,170 ratings 
39. 
Vampires, Werewolves & Demons: Twentieth Century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature
by:
Richard Noll
3.71 avg rating — 28 ratings 39. 
A Hunger to Kill: A Serial Killer, a Determined Detective, and the Quest for a Confession That Changed a Small Town Forever
by:
Kim Mager
3.80 avg rating — 1,530 ratings 
43. 
The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy
by:
Andrea Dunlop
4.15 avg rating — 4,459 ratings 46. 
Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England
by:
Sarah Wise
3.81 avg rating — 506 ratings 
50. 
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill
by:
Robert Whitaker
4.18 avg rating — 2,580 ratings 50. 
Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York
by:
Stacy Horn
3.64 avg rating — 2,834 ratings 52. 
A Court of Refuge: Stories from the Bench of America's First Mental Health Court 4.11 avg rating — 19 ratings
53. 
The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill
by:
David M. Buss
3.66 avg rating — 923 ratings 
55. 
The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America's First Prison for Drug Addicts 4.06 avg rating — 111 ratings
57. 
The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime
by:
Michael H. Stone
4.15 avg rating — 579 ratings 
59. 
Murderous Minds: Exploring the Criminal Psychopathic Brain: Neurological Imaging and the Manifestation of Evil 3.75 avg rating — 925 ratings
60. 
Breakdown: A Clinician's Experience in a Broken System of Emergency Psychiatry
by:
Lynn Nanos
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 39 ratings 61. 
American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System
by:
E. Fuller Torrey
3.81 avg rating — 465 ratings 
62. 
64. 
Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood
by:
Mark Oppenheimer
4.22 avg rating — 516 ratings 65. 
The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens
by:
E. Fuller Torrey
3.79 avg rating — 241 ratings 65. 
The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic
by:
Jillian Peterson
4.46 avg rating — 1,354 ratings 67. 
A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in America
by:
Tom Zoellner
3.80 avg rating — 169 ratings 
68. 
Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America
by:
Mark Follman
4.03 avg rating — 697 ratings 70. 
Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide and the Criminal Mind
by:
Roy Hazelwood
4.05 avg rating — 2,869 ratings 
72. 
Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It
by:
Terry A. Kupers
3.72 avg rating — 88 ratings 
74. 
Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories
by:
Sarah Lerner
4.52 avg rating — 847 ratings 
79. 
Mental Health in Prisons: Critical Perspectives on Treatment and Confinement (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology)
by:
Alice Mills
0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings 79. 
Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence
by:
Martha Minow
3.85 avg rating — 218 ratings 
81. 
One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway -- and Its Aftermath
by:
Åsne Seierstad
4.42 avg rating — 12,700 ratings 83. 
Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters
by:
Peter Vronsky
4.13 avg rating — 5,912 ratings 83. 
We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys
by:
Erin Kimmerle
3.86 avg rating — 4,432 ratings 85. 
Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of Our Criminalized Mentally Ill 3.88 avg rating — 200 ratings
87. 
The Criminalization of Mental Illness: Crisis and Opportunity for the Justice System
by:
Risdon N. Slate
4.43 avg rating — 28 ratings 
89. 
89. 
The Columbine Effect: How five teen pastimes got caught in the crossfire and why teens are taking them back
by:
Beth Winegarner
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 24 ratings 91. 
The Mind of a Murderer: Privileged Access to the Demons That Drive Extreme Violence 4.03 avg rating — 38 ratings
93. 
Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward
by:
Elizabeth Ford
3.98 avg rating — 2,050 ratings 93. 
The Lady in the Cellar: Murder, Scandal and Insanity in Victorian Bloomsbury
by:
Sinclair McKay
3.52 avg rating — 467 ratings 95. 
Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons
by:
Robin Levi
4.36 avg rating — 775 ratings 95. 
97. 
Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door: How to Protect Yourself Against a Ruthless Manipulator
by:
Martha Stout
3.98 avg rating — 874 ratings 97. 
The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having―or Being Denied―an Abortion 4.57 avg rating — 3,291 ratings
99. 
100. 
American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment
by:
Shane Bauer
4.23 avg rating — 12,499 ratings