Criminology and Psychiatry

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Criminology and Psychiatry Psychiatry has shown more interest in the problem of crime than has psychology. This state of affairs can be understood when we remember that psychiatrists as experts have been de- termining the criminal responsibility of a defendant. Psy- chiatry's theoretical interest in crime has been stimulated through the problems of the psychiatric court expert. In their work on problems of delinquency and crime, psy- chiatrists have encountered two main difficulties: First: Being physicians, psychiatrists have been accustomed to helping "patients," i.e., "sufferers." The delinquent or criminal may be put to suffering once he is apprehended and punished; he may show symptoms of suffering when he is pre- vented from continuing his asocial activities. Some of the so- called prison neuroses and psychoses are probably due to this particular deprivation. But the criminal undisturbed in his 1o For information on these theories and for bibliography, see 0. H. Mowrer and Clyde Kluckhohn: Dynamic Theory of Personality, Chap- ter 3 of Personality and the Behavior Disorders, edited by J. McV. Hunt, Ronald Press Company, New York, 1944. 40 FRITZ SCHMIDL activities is not suffering and even when he is made to suffer through punishment he is not a patient in the sense of medi- cal art and science. Second: The psychiatrist has been called upon in order to decide whether a person was "guilty," i.e., whether he could be made responsible for his acts. This is not a question of fact, but one of values. Although, according to

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