Dr. Guy on insanity & crime, and on the plea of insanity in criminal cases.
- William Augustus Guy
- Date:
- 1869
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Dr. Guy on insanity & crime, and on the plea of insanity in criminal cases. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![years of office as medical superintendent of a convict prison, witli a daily attendance subject to few interruptions, could not fail to have afforded me. My preconceived, opinions may be summed up in few Avords :—I have always felt more sympathy with the victims, than Avith the perpetrators, of crime; I do not shrink from the thought of the pain inflicted by corporal punishment when it falls on cruel and brutal offenders against the law, or on those who add serious breaches of prison discipline to the crimes which led to their in- carceration ; nor have I found any reason to prefer any other punishment for m order to death upon the scaffold. Let me add that I have always felt it a relief when I could succeed in tracing some act of revolting cruelty to madness, rather than to the corrup- tion of human nature; and that I have ahvays had more love of truth, in science, in morals, and in government, than fear of the consequences to Avhich its application might threaten to lead us. I state these, my preconceptions, not as subjects for discussion, much less as provocatives to those excellent persons from Avhom I differ in opinion, but as facts to be borne in mind at each step of this inquiry: by me, as a caution, lest I should be tempted to leave the straight and nan'OAV path of scientific indifference; by you, that you may scrutinise eveiy fact and inference Avith jealous watchfulness. The grave importance of my inquiry will I hope justify this reference to my personal Aoews. My subject, as the title of the paper indicates, must be arranged under tAvo heads : I. Insanity and Crime,, and II. The Plea of Insanity in Criminal Cases. I.—Insanity and Crime. Tlie questions Avhich offer themselves for solution under this head are three in number :—a. What is the ratio of insane to sane criminals ? 1. Is this ratio higher than among the rest of the community, and if so, to what extent ? c. What are the crimes to Avhich insane criminals are especially addicted ? a. The Patio of Lisane to Sane Criminals.—The numerical returns to which Ave should natui-ally first look for information on this ])oint, arc the successive volumes of “Judicial Statistics.” These supply us Avith the number of criminals tried for the several crimes and classes of crime, as Avell as the numbei’ of insane belonging to the several groups of criminals, under the tAVO heads, of those “ acquitted as insane,” and those “ found or declai’cd insane.” Noav, on comparing the Avhole number brought to trial for all olfencesin the thirty years I83G-G5, Avith the number of insane com- ])riscd under these tAvo heads, avo get the Ioav ratio of little more Ilian 1 per i,ooo: that is to say, of i per i,ooo for males and females of all ages, tried for acts of every degree of criminality, and](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22350366_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
