DISEASE AND CRIME-AN ANALOGY
Olson, Judge Harry
Disease and Crime—An Analogy Progress Has Been Made in the Study in Chicago and the Future of the Work is Encouraging. By JUDGE HARRY OLSON, (Address Before Wisconsin Bar Association.) IN MAY,...
...that cities like Chicago expend about ten million doKars aru nual'y upon its criminal courtu and | obce d«« partmuit las come to reel that he is not getting the equivalent in results for such outlays...
...Professor Hans Gros who died not long ago, one of the foremost criminologists of the world and director of the criminalistic institute at the University of Gratz, Austria, said in his wonderful book "The Handbook for Examining Magistrates" that it would be much better that judges would make mistakes in sending no end of normals to the psychopatbologisi for examination rather than make the mistake of passing over one who was rot normal, b ¦'t even if th^y shculd do this they could never wipe cut the stain which nsts upon them for hanging and incarcerating all these years irresponsible individuals...
...gist, it should be t>f some importance in the study of crime, especially to the legal and medical professions...
...It is the purpose of this paper to call attention to some of the facts as disclosed in the laboratory showing the relationship between disease and crime...
...The teachers of the subnormal schools of our cities know the situation...
...The statute...
...The groups of wo.ds not only in this way 'test out the various intelligence levels, but are also said to bring out psychopathic complexes, etc...
...Hickson said in a paper read before a meeting of alienists and neurologists: "From the clinical side, in a large percentage of these cases, there is nothing very definite on which to establish a diagnosis...
...The identification of this type early in life will be of great benefit to the individual and the state...
...Bleuler has developed the psychological approach to mental disease to a very high state...
...They are maintained by the city at an expenditure of more than six million dollars per year...
...All women above 18 years of age, charged with violation of city and state laws relating to prostitution, are brought to a special court known as the Morals Court...
...therefore, it is an ideal place for a study of the relation of disease and crime...
...These officers are ex officio officers of the court...
...IN MAY, 1914, the Mayor of the City of Chicago and the aldermen of the city, at the suggestion of the Judges of the Municipal Court established a psychopathic laboratory in connection with the special criminal branch courts...
...Such cases are not so dangerous be-" cause the defect is not ' ereditary...
...854, an Alabama case...
...The re-discovevy of Mendel's Law of Tie e liy has caused the archaeologists and the historian to revise his notions of the races of man, and it has also caused the alienist and psychologist to look toward heredity instead of environment as a prime factor in juvenile delinquency...
...The feeble-minded situation as a whole is a hopeless one...
...in fact, as a clinical entity dementia praecox in its present advanced development can be hardly said to exist in a large proportion of cases...
...By the psychological method we take the diagnosis to the case in the same way that we take the tests these days to the feeble minded, and not sit by and have to await developments as is the case in many instances diagnosed by the ordinary .clinical methods, and these tests are to the dementia praecox in the reliableness and applicability what the Binet-Simons tests are to the feeble-minded...
...the laboratory emphasizes the personal side of the criminal and the subjective side of the crime...
...THIS is an intelligence and psychopathic test worked out with great pains, applied for the first time in a laboratory, in which carefully selected stimulus words have been picked out corresponding to the various semesters in the elementary schools arid corresponding to the common thought constellations of these various grades...
...It was used by them primarily as a diagnostic test for feeble-rr' idedness in tl e elementary schools...
...The identification of the mentally defective should be begun in the public school...
...There has been little progress in the law in the last fifty years, but medical science has advanced with rapidity...
...This specialization brings together to one place the father and mother, "son and daughter, who are charged with offenses, and the centralization enables quick reference to the adjacent psychopathic laboratory of any case under suspicion...
...THE courts are beginning to rely more and more upon well trained psychopathologists, and the day of the expert on insanity whoso testimony was for sale is fast passing...
...Test or Assertion Scale...
...All of these tests, to have any dependable value of exactitude, demand the most careful kind of technique...
...He had specialized in neurology and psychiatry, and spent two and one-half years in the clinics of Kraepelin in Munich, Ziehen in Berlin and Bleuler in Zurich, and had been a member of Bleuler's staff for nearly a year and also on the psychiatric and neurological staff of the clinic in Berlin...
...The defectives are with them under their control until they grow too old to go to school, when they are turned loose upon the community to become the prey of others and finally a menace to society...
...Know thyself" was represented more than two thousand years ago to be tlie highest attainment for which human beings could strive...
...it requires a physician, with the facts gained from these sources to make the diagnosis...
...The ordinary criminal cases against adults are brought in thirteen different criminal branches about the...
...This test is an elaboration of the Binet-Simon Test, in which each of the mental faculties tested are subjected to very many more tests and the results marked in percentages instead of by years...
...Very little instruction has been imparted in medical schools ill psychology or in psychiatry, owing to the fact that the financial rewards in this field r/ere not so inviting nor the prospects of successful achievement so encouraging as in internal medicine or surgery, and the students did not demand the courses...
...Upon further inquiry I notice that this uniformity exists in all countries and all degrees of civilization...
...The statie character of criminal statistics, the fact that the criminal age occurs early when responsibilities come, and that 6nly about two per cent of the nopulation are ever charged with crime, oven in those early days...
...Nearly five thousand individuals charged with various offenses have passed through it...
...city...
...The psychopathic laboratory not only uses it for this purpose, but has also discovered it has many posbibilities along the lines of psychopathology...
...This method of approach to mental disease is important in a great laboratory because of the rapidity with which the diagnosis can be made...
...Impressed me as significant facts pointing to something inherently defective in the race, as responsible for the majority of fundamental crimes...
...THE taxpayer when he notes that the State of New York spends one-quarter of its total expenditure in the care of the ii>sane and that it has tens of thousands who neeH institutional tare who are not receiving it...
...Burglaries, robberies, larcenies and criminal assaults upon women are the work principally of mental defectives...
...As a reaction to these conditions, the idea of reformation was introduced into penology, then parole and probation, and yet in spice of all these efforts extending over long years the percentage of crime and criminals, like, toe Mississippi River, flows on...
...discovered the value of the visual memory for this purpose when given with certain modifications, such as a series of exposures followed by other visual memories, the latter bringing out certain symptoms of confabulation, etc...
...State, 2 Southern Rep...
...ACERTAIN percentage of more or less out-certain percentage of more or less out-edness are obvious to e layman, a large percentage is more or less obvious to the police judge, but a still larger number must be reserved for the identification of the expert psychopathologist...
...The identification of this type early in life will be of great benefit to the individual and the state...
...The courts lave been ccnsiiirng anc1 punishing them in order to set an example that would deter others...
...Bleuler has developed the psychological approach to mental disease to a very high state...
...It is called the psychological profile method because the score made In each test is plotted eo a percentage scale oad the different points joined together by a line...
...Besides the factors mentioned above, one must be impressed by the little bn-pression made upon the static existence of eriu e by our efforts at punishment and prevention...
...The slight advance made in the^battle for the suppression of crime has been due to the fact that we have relied upon legislation prescribing penalties instead of doing what we should long ago have attempted...
...William J. Hickson was chosen as director of this laboratory...
...Dr...
...A considerable percentage of homicides will be reduced when liquor is taken away from psychopaths who commit murder under its influence...
...The institution of psychopathic laboratories in connection with criminal courts indicates that bnth the legal and medical profession...
...The results show that a large per cent of crime is committed by mental defects...
...Attempts Have Failed...
...THE Municipal Courts of Chicago are highly specialized...
...Binet, who was a pf-;3ician and psychologist, at...
...Our laws except as to outspoken insanity are framed on the theory that all people an normal and hence punishments will deter...
...The defectives are with them under their control until they grow too old to go to school, when they are turned loose upon the community to become the prey of others and finally a menace to society.'- Their early identification and transference from the school, in the case of the feeble-minded, to a protective home environment, or in the case of the defective delinquent, the praecox, to a farm colony, will deflect from criminal ways thousands of the youth who would otherwise fill the criminal courts, .tails, reformatories and penitentiaries...
...the more sensitive the instrument, the much more technique is necessary...
...The longer we are in this field, and the greater our observation, the more we are convinced of the necessity that i.nyone giving these tests should be standardized, and they should only be interpreted by a man who is trained both in psychology and psychiatry...
...Nearly five thousand individuals have passed through the laboratory since its establishment...
...that the aggregate number of arrests for felonies per year appeared to be uniform proportionate to the population...
...Especially was this so of many offenders of adolescent age...
...Certainly with a view of this situation, it is important that we give intensive study to the criminal in order that we may know who his ancestors were, who he is, what he does and why he does it...
...The teachers of the subnormal schools of our cities know the situation...
...All suits for non-support, bastardy, desertion of women and children, etc., are brought into the Court of Domestic Relations...
...As this is probably the largest number of those charged with crime who have been diagnosed by a trained psychopatholoTHE identification of the mentally defective should be begun in the public schools...
...Another fact that impressed me is that orjy two per cent of the population are ever charged with crime...
...Though this decision w#.s written more than, thirty years ago, it is abreast of modern science today and is regarded as a leading case in the United States...
...Pinncll in Paris more than one hundred years ago called attention t» the great number of volumes adorning the shelves of libraries in comparison with the meagre record of exact observations conducted upon individuals...
...Since reasoning is a matter of analysis and Synthesis, these tests were devised specifically along these lines, and consist of a series of graded tests of simple similarities, double similarities, dissimilarities, simple syllogisms, etc...
...The findings of the laboratory are full of significance for neurology, psychiatry, psychology, ethics and especially for criminology...
...Fortunately, we have some exceptions in this country, notably the decision of Judge Sommer-ville in Parson vs...
...An occasional homicide has drawn the attention of Army and Navy of-^ficials to the situation, and the government ha* called trained physicians to its aid to weed, out the mentally unfit...
...The city has a police force numbering 5.000 men...
...THE courts have attempted to solve the crime problem and the courts have not been capable of doing so...
...We have laid too great importance on the environmental factors and paid too little attention to the problem of heredity...
...A man of this particular training was insisted upon because of the advanced work of these European clinics, and especially since Dr...
...No medical school In the land could afford nor has any such wealth of material for the study of insanity and mental deficiency as has the psychopathic laboratory in the municipal Court...
...that the average age of those arrested and convicted was between 18 and 24 years...
...We also discovered the fact and find it very helpful as a means of early diagnosis in cases of Paresis and Dementia Praecox, that in the majorityof these cases we find a certain ar..ount of scattering, each type being quite characteristic...
...and it is well known how well cases of dementia praecox paranoides can dissimulate on occasion...
...Work of the Courts...
...The laboratory has been in operation now for nearly four years and has attempted to make a systematic study and classification of the cases referred to it by the different judges, in order that effective measures of prevention and intelligent individual treatment might be invoked, "The problems of crime and mental deficiency are pressing for solution upon the legal and the medical profession...
...The war has called attention to the importance of this subject...
...Third, If he did have such knowledge, he may nevertheless not be legally responsible if the two following conditions concur: (1) If, by reason of the duress of such mental disease, he had so far lost the power to choo*>e between the riirht and wrong, and to avoid doing the act in question, as that his free agency was at the time destroyed...
...Jt thus has brought together a percentage of defective youths...
...The World Test is also a sure means of testing the capability of the expert as events in the life career of the individual will either disprove or affirm the diagnosis...
...What then is the promise of the future...
...The laboratory has now been in existence for a period of nearly four years...
...The city of Chicago now has a population of over two and one-half million of people, largely cosmopolitan, and it can be readily seen that the psychopr.thic laboratory has abundant material...
...The World Test is the most adamant of them all because it consists of the evolution of the reaction of the individual to his environment, and it involves a checking up of his capability of adjustment, his* failure and success at home, in school, at work...
...Where heredity plays a part as it does with the feeble-minded, insanities and psychopathic, the laws of eugenics must be invoked...
...Speaking of the diagnosis of Dementia Praecox, Dr...
...A small per rent are due to injuries at birth or to the brain in early life...
...The test, however, should only be used by a trained person and under the supervision of a psychopathologist for it in itself does not give any diagnosis...
...The tests are moit carefully selected many of them being well tried out tests of other experimenters...
...it ia like the physician's thermometer, pulse record, etc., in the hands of the nurse...
...If he did not have such knowledge, he is not legally responsible...
...The Lord Chancellor of England in the House of Lords on so late a day as 1862, declared that: 'The introduction of medical opinions and medical theories into this subject (of insanit) has proceeded upon the vicious principle of considering insanity as a disease...
...After the re-discovery of Mendel's Law the development of psychopathology in the great European clinics of Kraepelin, Ziehen and Bleuler has contributed most to an understanding of the criminal...
...THIS scale was the outcome of a long and painstaking study by Dr...
...Attempts to Curb Crime...
...Tne record of a.^sasiinrtions and attempts upon the !'\es of others by insane, de r.entia praecox ad ft i tic-minded individuals is not a credit to our lt.etfcods of hand!big this cits...
...The World Test...
...We are slowly learning that irany of the criminally insane and feeble-minded upon whom legal punishment has been inflicted in our courts were not fully responsible and thoir punishment did not -vork their reformation...
...The tests used in the laboratory are the following: Binet-Simon Scale...
...The homicides, for example, will be reduced by a rigid enforcement of the law, but more especially by the isolation in institutions of security of paranoics and those suffering from Dementia Praecox, epilepsy and Pfropfhebephrenia, and by creating a protective environment for the feeble-minded...
...Courts are Specialized...
...Simon, a physician...
...2) and if, at the same time, the alleged crime was so connected with such mental disease, in the relation of cause and effect, as to have been the product of it solely...
...The objective view of crime has'heretofore prevailed in the United States...
...Many of our courts still adhere to the right and wrong tests, despite such exceptions as J.ot-ed in paragraph Third above...
...are beginning to appreciate that a large number of chronic offenders are not always benefitted by the legal punishment inflicted nor is society adequately protected by such punishments...
...of combatting crime, insanity and feeble-mindedness along these new lines, we shall find that these defective stocks will gradually disappear...
...Many such physical or clinical signs should not he relied upon to make the diagnosis...
...thar a State like Illinois pays for its charitable institutions about thirty per cent of its total exr.endilurea, of which the mental, nervous and insrne group make up about twenty-two per cent...
...I noticed also that there was uniformity in the number, character and condition of crime...
...To begin with, the American courts, always ready to receive with respect the decisions of the courts of England, have been unduly influencedvby their decisions in insanity cases, as for example the rulings in the Mc-Naughton ease...
...We even find burning at the stake for some crimes...
...It was apparent, too, on investigation, that there was uniformity in the character of crimes...
...The criminal law is enforced in the courts and...
...Uniformity of Crime...
...After a generation or two...
...Observing the results of the investigation and research of alienists and psychopathologists, especially of thtvse connected with criminal courts, I am convinced that such is the fact...
...Such inquiries are fundamental before we can make further progress in the suppression of crime...
...These psychological signs and symptoms are as clear and definite to the properly trained man as they are unknown or unappreciated by those unfamiliar with the method...
...These were based on the medical opinion of that day...
...A record is kept in the laboratory of such data as will supplement findings of the laboratory...
...Our present methods of handling this situation are isolation and sterilization, since we realize more and more daily that the vast majority of these cases are of a hereditary nature...
...The intensive study of the individual who infract* laws and especially the grosser ones, such as burglary, robbery, larceny, criminal assaults upon women and homicides, will be the most important factor of success in our efforts to suppress crime...
...Associated with the doctor in the laboratory is his wife, Marie Hickson, and three young women who have been taught by tae Doctor to give the Binet-Simon Scale and other tests, and from time to time volunteer workers who are anxious to perfect themselves in this field...
...this is sometimes called predementia or latent dementia praecox, which as a matter of fact, is not latent at all except in the physical sense The psychological side may be quite well advanced and highly potential criminally, while yet • there are practically no definite physical or clinical signs...
...of most states on the subject of mental resp msibil-ity for crime are the same as they were fifty years ago...
...All those charged with violating city ordinances and the state laws, between 17 and 21 years, are brought to the Boys Court...
...Then followed solitary confinement, tht ball and chain...
...The dra^ft has called to th,e colors the young men from 21 to 31 years of age...
...For instance.swe...
...Second, If sueh be the case, did he know right from wrong, as applied to the particular act in question...
...The court in that case held: "The inquiries to be submitted to the jury then, in every criminal trial where the defense of insanity is interposed, are these: First, Was the defendant at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, as a matter of fact, afflicted with a disease of the mind, so as to be either idiotic or other, wise insane...
...Their early identification and transference fTom the school, in the case of the feebleminded, to a protective home environment, or in the case of the defective delinquent, the praecox, to a farm colony, - ill deflect from criminal ways thousands of the youth who would otherwise fill the criminal courts, jails, reformatories and penitentaries...
...It ;\lso contains double meaning words and other set words...
...In addition to their other duties they act as agents to tiie laboratory in bringing into the courts those who are charged with vagrancy . and crime, and who do not conform to normal standards...
...PRIOR to my connection with the Municipal Court, eleven years ago, I had been for a period of ten years a prosecutor in the criminal courts of Cook county, and my attention was constantly called to the large number of the criminal classes who were defective to the extent that their defect seemed to be the cause of their criminality...
...The volume of business is so great that the laboratory can only sample the cases from time to time as they pass through the courts...
...while at the same time the disease is of the utmost potentiality in the thinking and doing of the victim...
...Even so in the specialty of psychopathology there has been slow progress in this country and England compared to that on the continent of Europe...
...Beginning in England when 165 crimes weae punishable by death without making any influence upon the volume of crime, v/e can trace the efforts to suppress crime by maiming, mutilating and branding, then by the addition of humiliation as whmi the unfortunates we He ducked in the pond in the public square and pillories and whipping posts were utilized...
...Bad heredity creates a bad environment immediately, but it takes bad environment ages to create a bad heredity...
Vol. 10 • November 1918 • No. 11
