IMPULSE TO KILL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4681, 31 March 1924, Page 3

IMPULSE TO KILL.

CRIMINALS AND INSANITY.

CHIEF JUSTICE’S WARNING. .

The Lord Chief Justice, at the cen-. tenary dinner of the Lancet, issued a timely warning against the adoption of the recommendations of the recent committee of insanity among crim-, inals, states an ex-asylum officer in the Daily Mail. Only those who have lived among alienists can appreciate the extent to which the whole body is pe'-meated ’ with the idea criminal is insane, and should thev have the final work In every case i i win ch the plea of insanity is raised prisoners will hang or go free on a balance of scientific possibilities. Apart from homicidal mama, which is a well-recognised form of insanity, the lust of slaying in a fellow -creature is comparatively rare among the mentally deranged. In all forms of. insanity it is the repetition of a certain class of acts which is the predominant feature. The megalomaniac persists in his pretentions, the sexual pervert searches for opportunities to indulge in his craving, the kleptomaniac continues to steal. Why, then, should it be advanced that an individual wno commits a brutal murder, and who has never at any other time shown a tendency to destroy life, is the automatic victim of a diseased mentality ? Is there anything behind this “seeing red” beyond a sudden loss of control —a control which the law is there to see maintained ?

liow dangerous may become the in trod notion of the improved theories of the consulting room was shown in a ease recently before the courts. A woman was alleged to be irresponsible for her acts because she had some impairments of her ductless glands. Yet that these glands are able to influence human conduct is a hypothesis for which little tangible proof has been advanced I The rule in McNaughton’s case, which is that followed in criminal trials, is that for a person to be Irresponsible for an act he mils: not have appreciated that he was doing wrong.

This .seems to be the only guide to justice in our present knowledge of insanity, and the conversion of the Assize Court into a psychological standpoint of the medical profession clinic is not desirable either from the stnndpoiht of the medical profession or that, of the public. Once an Individ lai is certified to be so insane as to be - incapable of distinguishing right from wrong he cannot be classified as a criminal. To have a halfway house between the asylum and the prison—the criminal lunatic asy--lum —i ,: the only way to acknowledge ou’ - ignorance.