PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSES OF MILITARY OFFENDERS

Abstract

This paper consists of an outline and discussion of the psychiatric, diagnoses of 361 military offenders. These men were studied at a military installation known as a disciplinary barracks of the medium security type. They were examined several months after World War II hostilities had ceased but many of them had been confined while the war was still in progress. Their offenses varied and these will not be discussed except to mention that they consisted of AWOL, desertion, theft, assault, insubordination, inciting riot, rape, and other offenses. AWOL was most common. This series of 361 cases does not comprise all of those seen. Contact had been established with well over iooo offenders and many more than these 361 had been interviewed so that a diagnosis not encountered in this series may have been met before or after these inmates were seen. This study is of diagnosis within the general framework outlined in a War Department Technical Bulletin.2 In the Bulletin an attempt is made to introduce uniformity in nomenclature and a description of the diagnostic categories may be obtained by reference to it. Headings i through 5 in Table i are taken from the Bulletin. Headings 6 through 9 have been added because of difficulties encountered in classif ying all of the offenders according to the nomenclature proposed. Each diagnosis is based upon information gathered by social worker, psychologist and psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is the last to interview the man and he makes the final diagnosis. The case study consists of a social, educational and occupational history, a civilian criminal and military history, a history of previous military offenses, a story of the present offense and account of adjustment in confinement, a medical survey, psychological tests, and lastly a psychiatric in-