Psychopaths are everywhere; please, beware! Aside from being a passable album title, there's also more than a grain of truth to that opening line. In fact, there is a scientific certainty that a psychopath has read this very article (unless it tragically bombs). Perhaps they're reading it right now. Might it even be you?
Although estimates vary wildly, the most accepted figure put forward by Oxford University states that 1% of the western populous are psychopaths. That's one in a hundred. That's at least one on your street, at least one in your average office and a plethora of the bastards in government!
Contrary to the blood guts and mayhem of deranged nutjobs in slasher movies, real-life psychopathy sports a much more multifaceted front. The standard notion of measuring psychopathy is a checklist of twenty categories first devised by legendary psychologist Dr Robert D. Hare.
