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5 Aust. & N.Z. J. Criminology 1 (1972)

handle is hein.journals/anzjc5 and id is 1 raw text is: AUST. & N.Z. JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (March, 1972): 5, 1 EDITORIAL A RECENT leading article entitled Psychiatry and the Dangerous offender' is timely and the reading which it stimulated has caused us to become con- cerned regarding a number of the double-damned; the offender consider- ed to suffer from some psychiatric illness. One may turn first to some papers published by Barker et al. in Ontario, Canada. One of these papers, Defence Disrupting Therapy,2 contains the following opening remarks: we are attempting to treat severely sick persons whose legal and psychiatric situations could hardly be worse. Many patients are admitted after having been charged with serious offences and found unfit to stand trial, or not guilty by reason of insanity. Where the past record and present dynamics suggest . . . that murder, assault or arson will be likely to accompany the early stages of a subsequent relapse, their management revolves around the mandate that they are not to be released until they are no more likely to burst into violence than mem- bers of the general public. Then, having described a somewhat frightening treatment regime, one reads The (senior) author has increasing reservations about the wisdom of publishing this paper. On the one hand, since it describes a rather radical procedure in steady use for some time it should be brought to the attention of the scientific community, but on the other hand the misuse of these drugs could be harmful in situations where the stakes are not so high as they seem to be for those incarcerated as 'criminally insane'. It is important to note that the patients Barker et al. are speaking of are not clear cut or florid psychotics and they write3 the patient . . . enters the hospital with a relatively calm exterior and an abundance of social graces, enabling him to convince himself and other patients that 'he needs no treatment . . .' These persons are seriously ill in a special way, and we think that for such a person to have the intense chaos of his disturbance made more obviously apparent, both to himself and to others, has clear treatment advantages. It is stated4 that the insane criminal needs psychiatric aid and to a quite considerable extent insanity in this setting relates to the concept of exceedingly dangerous. This point of view is expressed when one reads5 The general public probably still believes that a strong link exists 1. Leading Article (1972) Med.J.Aust. i 1. 2. Barker, E. T., Mason, M. H. and Wilson, J. (1969) Canad. Psychiat. Ass. J. 14 355. 3. Ibid. 4. Barker, E. T. and Mason, M. H. (1968) Buber Behind Bars Canad. Psychiat. Ass. J. 13 61. 5. Leading Article (1972) Med.J.Aust. i 1. 1

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