Jun 27 / 2019

The 22 levels of evil according to Michael Stone’s scale.

A tool that allows you to place criminals in one of 22 levels of evil.

Michael Stone is a doctor specializing in forensic psychiatry at Columbia University who has spent most of his life studying and analyzing in detail the behavior of all types of murderers. Thanks to all this research, he was able to elaborate the scale of evil.

Most Evil: developing a scale of evil

Stone directed the program Most Evil (in Spanish, Profile of a Psychopath) on the Discovery Maxwhere he exposes this classification, which he calls "scale of evil". In the different chapters of the program, the life and crimes of several murderers are shown, about whom an investigation is carried out and each case is explained in detail, taking into account all the factors that may have influenced, predisposed and explained the reason for their behavior, in order to be able to classify them later on this scale.

A tool for assessing the degree of psychopathy

The scale of malice was carefully created taking into account many types of factors: environmental, neurological and genetic.. The objective was to break down each case into small units, as if they were molecules, in order to be as precise as possible and to determine the reason why a person could commit something as heinous as murder.

In the scale of evil, questions are posed that help the professional to know the particularities of each case. For example, explore whether the subject had a traumatic childhood, their motivations for committing murder, why they have a preference for some victims or others... A key point in this scale of evil is, redundantly, the evil and sadism itself embodied in the crime, that is, the meditation of the crime, the method of death that was used, etc.. Therefore, judgments of value, morality, ethics and others are used to classify the subjects at a particular point on this scale.

Analyzing the mind and brain of the killer

In addition, Stone allows us to delve deeply into the mind of the killer, examining how the killer's brain works.Stone examines how the brains of people who commit Blood crimes work, as well as their feelings towards the victim according to the degree of evil they are on their scale of evil.

Sometimes the information is complemented with brain scan tests, making the person visualize different pictures and emotionally unpleasant words, or the opposite, i.e., images that evoke positive feelings such as love.

The 22 levels of badness

The scale in question is a hierarchy that ascends progressively from level 1 to level 22, with minimal or no badness.being minimal or no evil (level 1) to maximum evil (level 22).

After this introduction, let's get to know the model of the scale and its different levels.

Level 1Level 1: killed exclusively in self-defense, not showing any psychopathic tendency.
Level 2 : crimes of passion committed by lovers.Level 2: crimes of passion committed by jealous lovers. They may be immature and/or egocentric but are not psychopaths.
Level 3Level 3 : partners, associates or enthusiastic lovers of dangerous murderers. They have impulsive and aberrant personality with antisocial traits.
Level 4They kill in self-defense, but they largely provoked the aggression towards them.
Level 5Level 5: psychologically traumatized individuals who are desperate and murder family members who sexually abused them. They may include drug addicts whose motive for their murder is to get money or drugs, but do not possess significant psychopathic characteristics. They have some remorse for the acts committed.
Level 6They act impulsively, "in the heat of the moment". They do not have marked psychopathic characteristics.
Level 7Highly narcissistic individuals, indistinguishable from people with some kind of psychotic disorder, kill people around them mainly out of jealousy or passion.
Level 8Level 8 : people not psychopathic but with high levels of repressed rage, they kill when some event triggers or ignites it.
Level 9Level 9 : scorned jealous lovers with psychopathic characteristics.
Level 10Killers who killed people who got in their way or witnesses who could give them away. They have egocentric but not clearly distinguishable psychopathic personality.
Level 11Same as level ten but this time with a noticeable psychopathic personality.
Level 12: power-hungry psychopaths who killed when they felt cornered.
Level 13Level 13 : psychopaths full of rage, who lost control of their rage.
Level 14Level 14 : ruthlessly self-centered psychopathic conspirators, who want to make a profit from someone.
Level 15 : multihomicidal psychopaths.multihomicidal psychopaths who in a day of outburst of rage (spree killing) kill as many people as cross their path in cold blood.
Level 16Level 16 : psychopaths who commit several or multiple criminal acts, they are not satisfied with killing once and may include vicious acts.
Level 17Serial killers: sexually perverse serial killers and torturer-murderers, although their main purpose is rape, since the subsequent homicide is for the purpose of not denouncing the victim.
Level 18homicide murderers who usually torture their victims beforehand, although their main motivation is murder.
Level 19psychopaths inclined towards terrorism, subjugation, rape and intimidation.
Level 20Level 20 : psychotic torturers and murderers in whom torture is the primary motivation.
Level 21Level 21 : psychopaths who are extremely interested in torture, but are not known to have committed homicide.
Level 22Level 22: extreme torturers and psychopathic killers, in whom torture is the primary motivation. Their crimes involve prolonged sexual torture, followed by the murder of their victims.

Profile of a psychopath

Finally, here is a link to several chapters of the program "Profile of a Psychopath", so that you can see how different homicides are classified on the scale of evil. You can also watch the program currently on television on the channel Discovery Max.

(Updated at Apr 13 / 2024)