Medico-Legal Concepts of Criminal Insanity

Abstract

The problem of relating law to psychiatry and other behavior sciences is epitomized by the difficulties, on the one hand, of applying the archaic McNaghton rules on insanity in the modern criminal court and, on the other, of applying the common notion that all delinquents and criminals are emotionally sick people. These conflicting ideas point up very acutely the need in contemporary criminology to improve the integration of the sciences of human behavior with the reasonable and realistic operation of our criminal courts and correctional system. To that end we must exploit the skills of the biological and social sciences more fully, but we must also better adapt the techniques of these fields to the goals of criminal law, insofar as they may serve the administration of justice. Much of the problem of relating law to the clinical fields lies in the need to clarify the functions and objectives of each, to recognize the differences in their orientations, and to arrive at an effective coordination of them.