Carl A. Larson

Crimes of Violence and Alcohol Abuse in Sweden

Of 793 offenders submitted to forensic psychiatric examination in 1972-1976, 44% were guilty of crimes of violence against persons. Among them, 68% were drunk when committing their crime; for nonviolent offenders this percentage was 38. Psychotic assailants stood apart as mostly sober. While Swedish and United States drinking patterns are similar, the homicide rate in Sweden is about one-tenth that in the United States. The possible cause-effect relationship between alcohol abuse and assaultive behavior is complex. A common basis could be found in personal and interpersonal distress rather than in socioeconomic and educational shortcomings.

Age of onset in schizophrenia.

In 153 male schizophrenic probands born in 1881–1900 the age range of onset ran from 9 to 77 years, the mean and standard deviation were 35.6^12.6 years. By securing probands from a sufficiently dista

Mental disturbed violent offenders in Sweden

Among perpetrators of crimes of violence against persons submitted to psychiatric examination, 16 men with severe mental disorder have been examined by standardized psychologic tests and clinical interviews. Objective anamnestic data have been used to assess social background, individual development and onset of mental disorder. Psychotic as well as nonpsychotic men reacted with violence against threat to the offenders physical existence of his self image. In most instances ego weakness or depleted mental energy exaggerated the feeling of threat or stymied the ability to choose alternative solutions. Abuse of alcohol and narcotics and acute inebriation often weakened self-control and triggered of the act of violence.

The Skin: Problems of Inheritance

independent of the prestimulation heart rate. Because of the small number of trials, it was not possible to control mathematically for the prestimulation rate (3). Instead, the procedure used was as follows. For the 20 trials asleep, a mean heart rate and a standard deviation were obtained for each subject (see Table 1). Next, each trial when the subject was asleep was compared to its paired trial when he was awake and any trial during the waking condition for which the prestimulation heart rate was one standard deviation or less away from the heart rate during sleep was considered to have an equal prestimulation heart rate. Each subject could have a maximum of 20 matched pairs; however, two subjects had no matched pairs, while the remaining nine subjects had from two to nine pairs. For these nine subjects a mean curve was generated for the waking and sleeping states so that each subject would contribute only one value to the following analyses. Table 2 presents the data for the nine subjects who could be equated on prestimulus heart rate. In order to observe the initial cardiac response to stimulation, the difference between the prestimulation rate and the first five beats after stimulation were com-