Book Review: Crime and Insanity in England 2: New Solutions and New Problems
| Author | Allen A. Bartholomew |
| Published date | 01 June 1974 |
| Date | 01 June 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000486587400700210 |
AUST.N.ZJ.C.
(1974)7 BOOKREVIEWS
121
patient. This whole chapter requires much great-
er debate than is offered to the reader.
The third section of the book, concerned with
the criminal process, is more difficult to read in
tha t the relationship between the criminal
process and the psychiatric services
are
suf-
ficiently different in Canada from Australia as to
make for confusion. A number of points
are
made, however, which may be accepted in any
jurisdiction. These concern the
matter
of 'Fit-
ness to plead' .and one recommendation reads:
"Where a positive allegation is made by or on
behalf of an accused person
that
he did not
commit the offence charged, such an issue
should be tried before the issue of fitness to stand
trial".
Another reads:
"Indeterminate
detention
should not necessarily flow from a finding of un-
fitness to stand trial; it should be possible for the
individual, inan appropriatecase, to be released
from custody to await trial (See R. v.Judge Mar-
tin; Ex parte Attorney-General 119731 V.R.
339; (1973) 6 Aust. N.Z., J. Criminol 257). At no
point is the
matter
of a person found unfit to
plead and then ordered to be kept in
strict
cus-
tody in a t'rison considered but it seems likely
that such a possibility never occured to the com-
mittee and that if
it
had they would have made a
recommendation to the effect
that
no such
person should ever"be held under circumstances
of penal imprisonment.
When dealing with the notion of criminal re-
sponsibility the proposal is put:
"In
the event
that the following recommendations
are
accept-
ed by Parliament, the defence of insanity should
be abolished in all criminal cases
except
those
where there is a mandatory death penalty. In all
other cases where the sanity of the accused at
the time of the alleged offence is put in issue,
pyschiatric evidence could be introduced to de-
termine what disposition would be most appro-
priate in the event of a verdict of guilt
...
". On
the assumption that all jursidictions
are
either
abolishing or giving consideration to abolishing
the death penalty, this proposal is very much in
~!ne
with the statement of Baroness Wootton:
Revolutionary though the prospect of abando-
ning the concept of responsibility may be, it is
clear
that we
are
travelling steadily towards it"
(Social Science and Social Pathology, 1959, p.
251). In that the proposal. in effect, jettisons in-
sanity as a defence, so too it is recommended
that,
"the
defence of diminshed responsibility
should not be introduced into Canadian criminal
law".
There is a suggestion made that,
"In
cases
where the offence was one involving death or
serious bodily harm and where
there
is reason to
believe that the accused is dangerous, provision
could be made to remand for observation, and in
the event that investigation confirmed that the
accused is chronically dangerous, then provision
could be made for his indefinite segregation with
adequate provisions for review" and discharge
when
safe
(reviewer's
emphasis).
Dan-
gerousness has long troubled the criminologist
and notions of special and indeterminate segre-
gation may be utterly inappropriate
(I)
and in
f~ct
produ~e
in the segregated individual aggres-
sive behaviour: the
treatment
produces behav-
iour which confirms the original diagnosis. The
so-called dangerous sex offender should not be
seen as anything very special and it is of interest
to note that Dr. G. Scott of Kingston Penitentiary
gave evidence to the Ouimet Committee that of
"?Odangerous sex
offenders"
in the Penitentiary
nine were not dangerous in
terms
of physical vio-
lence and that of the remaining 11 "considered
dangerous" five were mentally ill and cer-
tifiable.
Further
investigation might have dem-
onstrated that all 11 offenders
were
men-
tally ill and certifiable -more appropriately
cared.
for.
an~
treated
in a therapeutically ori-
ented
msn
tutton
rather
than kept in an establish-
ment presumably wedded to a penal philosophy. '
It is all too easy to pick out bits from a book
such as this and then become critical of the dis-
cussion offered and the recommendations for-
mulated. This book is to be applauded because it
w~s
written at all. It is clearly a very necessary
thing that experts from the various behavioural
sciences (which shall include the law) should sit
down together and
attempt
to assess and reas-
sess the present
state
of the law (civil and crimi-
nal) in relation to the pyschiatrically disordered
- and
try
and decide what is
meant
by such a
phrase as pyschiatrically disordered. In this case
it
is agreeable to note that the committee
members
came
from all over Canada and repre-
sented anumber of different disciplines. It would
be nice to see something of this
sort
take place in
Australia and, if such could be arranged, that the
r.esults.of the research and deliberations be pub-
lIshed In book form - along the lines of the
present book. This book may be recommended
for all administrators in the field of mental
health and correctional services, as well as
many others. It is also likely to be of
great
value
to teachers and tutors who might well use the
recommendations as the basis for lectures, and
more valuably, tutorial and
seminar
discussions.
ALLEN A. BARTHOLOMEW
Melbourne
1. Morris, Norval (1973) Sentencing the Dangerous
Criminal. Read at the Australian Council for Crime
Prevention, Correction and After-care biennial meeting
held in Melbourne, University of Melbourne, August 17,
1973.
See also Baxstrom vHerald. 383 U.S. 107(1966).
Crime and Insanity in England 2: New
Solutions and New Problems. University
Press, Edinburgh,
1973.pp.
316. 0 85224
228 x£5.00.
THIS BOOK, like
the
first volumeu) is
absolutely first class from
nearly
every
poin~
of .view
and
is a superb amalgam
of historical scholarship
and
contempor-
ary
observation and research in a whole
l. Crime
and
Insanity
in
England
1: The
Historical
Perspective.
Walker
N. 1968,
Edinburgh
University
Press.
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