The Psychological Aspect of Delinquency
Series ol Lectures, witn a foreword :Author: Elizabeth Casson, M.D., D.P.M., General Editor, G. de M. Rudolf, M.R.C.P., D.P.M., D.P.H. BailliSre, Tindall & Cox. Is.
Six lectures on delinquency were delivered to the Bath and Bristol Mental Health Society, under the presidency of Dr Elizabeth Casson, who writes a foreword.
In the first lecture, Dr Bunbury discusses delinquency in the mentally disordered. She describes cases of “crime” committed by persons suffering from manic depressive insanity, dementia praecox, epilepsy and general paralysis. She then describes what she calls a normal criminal, one whose upbringing and circum- stances are so bad that his own conscience entirely condones the crime, while neurotic criminals are said to commit crimes because they desire to punish themselves. This lecture may have stimulated interest in the audience by reason of the narratives of crime, but is extremely superficial and of little or no educative value.
In the next lecture, Dr Ling discusses the ” normal criminal ” and agrees with Goring that these are drawn from the ranks of the mentally inefficient who are lacking in ambition and foresight. He thinks that psychological examination may be useful in some cases, but that most cases lack the mental ability to benefit from this, or are too old and set in their ways. Dr Philips contributes a lecture on the treat- ment of venereal disease in relation to the work of the British Social Hygiene Council. In the last paragraph he mentions juvenile delin- quency, but why his lecture should have been included in the present series is by no means obvious.
Dr Rees’s lecture is good. He lays stress on the necessity for diagnosis in all forms of delinquency, as a preliminary to treatment and points out that punishment even to the extent of imprisonment may be a very useful form of treatment in some cases. The rebels against society are theoretically suitable for psycho- therapy, but too often do not co-operate sufficiently to make this of any avail. In the true psychoneurotic the offence is out of tune with his general behaviour, and such cases can often be easily recognized and are essentially well fitted to be benefited by psycho- therapy. He lays stress on the responsibility of magistrates to hate the antisocial act of the delinquent, but not to hate the delinquent himself.
Dr Rudolf deals with the defective delinquent and points out the frequency with which such cases escape recognition as defectives and the waste which this involves. After reviewing the type of crime committed by the defective, he describes the training possible in a colony whereby a delinquent defective may be re- educated and reclaimed.
Finally, Canon Pynm discusses delinquency from the point of view of Christianity, pointing out the universality of the sense of sin in some form or other, and the necessity for a doctrine of forgiveness and Christian love, if the delinquent is to be helped.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.