Psychiatry and the Prevention of Sex Crimes

Abstract

During the past few years the country has been stirred by a considerable number of reported criminal cases in which children or young women have been attacked. It is safe to say that in certain quarters public indignation has reached almost a mass hysteria which has affected not only the public but also official authorities. A sheriff in New York recommended shooting every child attacker on the spot. Even from medical sources plans have come that seem impractical and would affect the whole role of the medical profession in the community. But it is both possible and expedient to look at these matters soberly. A constructive outlook cannot come from heated discussions about what should be done with this or that individual, or from hasty generalizations advocating pet causes or pet remedies. In the discussions that have grown from the public interest in the subject, two extreme points of view stand out. On the one hand it is stated that this is a purely legal and criminological problem. The advocates of this point of view say: Round up all the major and minor offenders, keep them under permanent police supervision, give the convicted delinquents the sternest punishment and the longest jail terms possible, introduce new laws making their punishment even severer and prolonging their years in jail, tighten the parole laws, exclude the so-called mollycoddling attempts at human understanding-punish, restrict, deter! To this category belong the diehard opponents of the parole system, who raise a hue and cry after every startling crime and want to make us believe that if every criminal would serve every day of his full sentence all would be well. The other point of view is equally extreme. It claims that most, if not all, of these delinquents belong to the province of psychiatry. The whole question of sex crimes, according to the very recent statement of a distinguished member of the Bar, is one which should be laid squarely at the feet of the medical profession. It is