The Legal Concept of Insanity and the Treatment of Criminal Impulses

HE CONCEPT of personal responsibility is the basis of criminal law. It is founded on the idea that the individual who performs criminal deeds is responsible for them and their consequences, because he is expected to be capable of regulating his behavior within the limits drawn by the law. Insanity is generally accepted as an adequate defense in criminal cases because the insane individual is not considered to be able to recognize the very character of his deeds and is therefore not criminally liable. Lacking insight into the consequences of his actions, he is excused from taking any responsibility for them. The universal acceptance of this principle indicates the extreme importance of the definition of insanity for the evaluation of criminal responsibility. The legal concept of insanity as a defense in criminal cases is, of course, a legal matter and as such, the concern of law makers, the courts, and all those charged with carrying out the spirit and the letter of the law. Although it is unquestionably a prerogative of the makers and the agencies of the law to define in what manner and under what conditions the presence of insanity excludes criminal responsibility, the question of what insanity is, or rather the question of what constitutes the modern equivalent of what formerly was called insanity, is a medical and psychological problem. Therefore, the description, interpretation and diagnosis of a state of mind which prevents an individual from full insight into or control of his actions must be the concern of students of the mind. In these matters the psychiatrist, being the medical man specifically concerned with the study of the human mind, and the criminologist, who particularly knows about the conditions which create crime, are the foremost experts. Our paper should not in any way be interpreted as an attempt to