should be supplemented by the vesting of the parole power in the hands
of a board composed, not exclusively of members of the legal profession,
but largely of physicians, and particularly those trained in
psychopathology.
The foregoing cases, while distinctly abnormal mentally, owe their
recidivism to a qualitative rather than a quantitative defect.
Since the original publication of this paper, I have had occasion to
observe a number of recidivists in whom the defect was essentially a
quantitative one, _i.e._, patients ranging in intelligence all the way
from idiocy to moronism.
The following case is a good illustration of this type:--
R. W. (colored) was admitted to this Hospital for the first time from
the District of Columbia Reform School on February 8, 1898. He was at
that time serving a sentence for housebreaking. He was twenty years
of age at that time and examination showed him to possess the
intelligence of an imbecile. During his sojourn here he had several
maniacal outbreaks, but recovered from these and was discharged into
the care of his parents on November 23, 1898. Sometime in 1900 he was
again sent to the Reform School and was readmitted to this Hospital on
November 17, 1900. He suffered at this time from an acute
hallucinatory episode from which he soon recovered and was allowed to
go out on a visit on February 20, 1901. He never returned from this
visit but on July 23, 1902, was sentenced to twelve months
imprisonment for larceny. While serving this sentence he was admitted
to the State Hospital for the Insane at Norristown, Pennsylvania,
where he suffered from an acute maniacal attack with persecutory
delusions. He was discharged from that institution, by order of the
Court, on September 29, 1903. On January 1, 1904, he was arrested for
housebreaking and sentenced to three years imprisonment at the United
States Penitentiary at Moundsville, Virginia. From the above
institution he was admitted to this Hospital on May 8, 1905,
suffering from an acute maniacal attack. He soon recovered again and
was discharged on August 18, 1906, with a diagnosis of imbecility with
recurrent mania. He was readmitted here October 3, 1907, and
discharged April 1, 1909. On January 23, 1910, he was given a two
months workhouse sentence for petty larceny. On September 7, 1912, he
was again sentenced to four years in the Penitentiary for grand
larceny, from which institution he was readmitted here on January 19,
1915.
I shall not enter into a detailed discussion of this case. It is simply
quite illustrative of the absolute necessity for permanent segregation
of mental defectives.
When some of this clinical material was first published in 1912 it met
with very gratifying recognition at the hands of those who were
interested in criminalistics.
I wish to take this opportunity of expressing my particular appreciation
of Dr. Healy's kind words of approbation and encouragement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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