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8 Brit. J. Delinq. 85 (1957-1958)
Depression and Crime

handle is hein.journals/brijode8 and id is 93 raw text is: DEPRESSION AND CRIME I By G. M. WODDIS (NOTTINGHAM) The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the relationship which sometimes, and only sometimes, appears to exist between states of depres- sion and the performance of criminal acts. No attempt will be made to define precisely the term ' depression' in this context. Whatever the argu- ments about the xtiology in a particular case, depression is a subjective experience, 'felt in the nerves and felt along the heart ', which sometimes presents signs and symptoms even to the untrained observer, but which very occasionally is first forced on social awareness by the commission of an anti-social act or crime as defined by Craig (8). He defines crime as 'an anti-social act, of varying degree, the limits of which are defined by the laws of the country in which the individual lives'. That the police are aware of the commission of a crime as the first indication of mental illness is shown by the evidence of the Association of Chief Police Officers given before the Royal Commission on the Law relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency; their view was: 'The hazard of the person of unsound mind might present itself without warning and in its most dangerous form on the first occurrence of the illness.' In this paper it is hoped to show that (1) in a small number of cases, the depressive state may not be recognized even after the commission of a crime because its possibility has not been considered; (2) in a few cases, a tendency to repeated acts of crime has been ' cured ' by treating depres- sion; (3) sometimes, especially after acts of violence, all the clinical signs of depression may disappear, as if the very explosive nature of the act had worked as a cathartic and the patient had ' cured ' himself. The assertion that depression may be unrecognized in relation to crime is at variance with the views of Sir D. K. Henderson (16). He states explicitly that mental disorder does not start suddenly without warning; that friends or relatives have been aware for a long time of odd, strange conduct; and that when a crime is committed by someone who, up to the moment of the crime, was looked on by the majority of his fellow-men as an ordinary individual, it is fair to assume, in the first place at least, that the criminal act was that of a sane and responsible person. Although this argument appears valid and undoubtedly applies to many types of ' Based on a paper read to a Conference of the National Association of Probation Officers at Loughborough, September 1955.

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