Evil at Our Table by Samantha Stein, PsyD explores the moral and psychological terrain navigated by those tasked with evaluating society’s most dangerous offenders. Grounded in real cases, the story reveals how decisions about confinement and release are made when certainty is impossible.
Working within California’s Sexually Violent Predator Law, Dr. Stein conducts evaluations that can determine whether an individual remains incarcerated indefinitely or is allowed to return to the community. Each assessment demands clinical precision and an acceptance of profound uncertainty.
In Evil at Our Table, Dr. Stein details how she examines crimes, personal histories, psychological patterns, and expressions of remorse while remaining alert to deception and self-justification. She holds offenders accountable without denying their humanity, even as she recognizes the high cost of being wrong. Alongside professional analysis, the book addresses the personal impact of repeatedly confronting violence and moral ambiguity. Part forensic study and part inquiry into human behavior, the story grapples with how society balances safety, justice, and civil liberties.
Samantha Stein Psy.D. is a forensic psychologist who specialized in sex offender and addiction treatment, court-ordered evaluations, and court testimony for nearly 3 decades. The author of a popular PsychologyToday.com column with over 2.2 million reads, her writing has been published in numerous outlets, including Flaunt Magazine, The Awakenings Review, Anxy Magazine, and The Guardian. A frequent speaker and teacher, she has presented at numerous conferences. She is also an avid photographer whose work has been exhibited in several small shows and has sold to collectors and individuals. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit Samantha at her website.
My Review
This book is as much memoir as it is the true crime the title suggests.
I struggled with this a bit because both the descriptions of her works and the glimpse into her life were interesting. However, because she wavered between the two I found I wanted more information on both ends.
As a clinical psychologist myself, I was very interested in the descriptions of the measures she used to determine risk and the day to day activities in her job. I think this book would be well suited for students of psychology interested in doing clinical work with this population.
For the lay world I think the book needs to be relabeled to ensure that it is clear this is more about the the author than it is about the people she evaluated.
