Henry Weihofen

The urge to punish : new approaches to the problem of mental irresponsibility for crime

Weihofens main preoccupation is with the problem of how the law should assess the nature and degree of mental disturbance in those who are guilty of criminal acts.

Book Reviews : The Meaning of Criminal Insanity, Herbert Fingarette. Pp. 271. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972.

as a paranoid condition, the manic phase of manic-depressive psychosis, epilepsy, and the six and fourteen per second syndrome described by Gibbs. The discussion of the relationship between epilepsy and crime is informative, but the author’s notion of manic-depressive psychosis and the six and fourteen per second syndrome suffers from bias and inaccuracies. Thus, the author considers a manic &dquo;a person who frantically seeks release from the oppression of guilt feelings.&dquo; Re-

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Patterns in Criminal Homicide, Marvin E. Wolfgang. Pp. 413. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 1958,

Book Reviews : Patterns in Criminal Homicide, Marvin E. Wolfgang. Pp. 413. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 1958,

8. Marvin E. Wolfgang’s Patterns in Criminal Homicide, which analyzes 588 killings in Philadelphia during the five years 1948 to 1952, is probably the most precise and detailed study of criminal homicide that has yet been done. It records statistically the places where and the times when the killings occurred, the weapons used, the race, sex, age, and other characteristics of the offenders and the victims, their relationship to one another, the cir-

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Criminal law has certainly not been regarded as &dquo;private&dquo; law. Yet, its traditional procedure has not differed radically from that of civil litigation, with the two parties conducting an adversary proceeding before a judge who himself has no continuing responsibility for solving the crime problem. Today, inspired perhaps by the development of administrative tribunals in other fields, it is becoming more and more the practice to add an administrative arm to the criminal courts. Probation officers, case workers, medical officers, and psychiatric clinics attached to the courts give the judges in some of our larger cities a fairly large staff of assistants in the work of administering justice. One issue for which the traditional procedure has proved particularly unsatisfactory is the determination of a defendant’s mental condition in criminal cases. The shortcomings have been set forth so often that they will not be repeated here.l Suffice it to say in summary that determining mental condition by having each side retain