PSYCHOLOGIST FOR PRISONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21983, 19 June 1933, Page 12

PSYCHOLOGIST FOR PRISONS

A DOCTOR'S RECOMMENDATION

CRIME AND NEUROSIS

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 12. Dr W. Norwood East, Medical Commissioner of Prisons, in his official report for 1933, makes comments on the theory that psycho-therapy can cure many recidivists. He mentions that/no statistics are available to show how many lawbreakers in this country have had their criminal careers checked by psychotherapy. „ , „ "As far as lam aware," he says, no medical psycho-therapeutist has any extensive experience in this method of dealing with crime. Neither is it to be assumed that the prisoner who commits a crime as the result of an abnormal mental state is amenable to psycho-therapy because anohter individual with similar compulsions has been so relieved." "It is a travesty," he adds, "to suggest that crime is a disease. , But it is clearly the result sometimes of a neurotic diorder. A parade of abstract conceptions and unwarranted assumptions, however, creates hostility and delays procress where practical issues are important. The problem is to ascertain how many law-breakers are genuine when they declare that they desire to be cured of the pathological condition associated with the crime, and how many of these can be treated with success. "To this end a scientific investigation carried out in a penal institution on the lines suggested by the Persistent Offenders' Committee, recording failures as well as successes, is much to be desired." MORE ALERT.

Dr East comments on the higher educational attainments of prison population, and saya there is also a higher standard of intelligence than among the prison population at the. beginning of the cen*tury. . , In reports of various prison officials, the chaplain of Brixton Prison says:— "Among the remands I regret to note a very large percentage of young men charged with motor stealing, smash-and-grab raids, and house and shop-breaking. They appear largely to have been out of work a long time, gome have never done much, and these are very often very well dressed, and do not appear to appreciate the seriousness of their position." FEWER CONVICTIONS.

Tabulated statistics show that in the aggregate there has been a very notable decrease in convictions of men for crime during recent years, the total in 1931 being 32,471 compared with 105,510 in 1013. During the last 20 years the number of convictions for drunkenness has decreased considerably, but prison authorities cannot cope with the very high percentage of recidivism among one little group of women. The commissioners point out that persons convicted of serious crimes form only a small percentage of the total number sent to prison. Indeed, during the year, out of every 100 receptions of men, only 15 were due to crimes sufficiently serious to entail sentences of over three months. The corresponding figure for women was nine.