Crimes of Passion and Psychiatry in Early Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This article examines how early twentieth-century crime of passion trials constructed medical insanity and criminal responsibility by litigating varied interpretations of masculine decision making. Specifically, it looks at how defense lawyers used and applied psychiatric knowledge to their clients' benefit and how psychiatrists, in turn, (re)asserted control over that knowledge by condemning its misuse. The way that these medico-legal narratives played out in the courtroom during crime of passion trials, and in the public discourses that surrounded them, ultimately brought a smoldering competition between distinct understandings of modern masculinity into sharp focus.

Remodelling criminal insanity: Exploring philosophical, legal, and medical premises of the medical model used in Norwegian law.

This paper clarifies the conceptual space of discussion of legal insanity by considering the virtues of the 'medical model' model that has been used in Norway for almost a century. The medical model identifies insanity exclusively with mental disorder, and especially with psychosis, without any requirement that the disorder causally influenced the commission of the crime. We explore the medical model from a transdisciplinary perspective and show how it can be utilised to systematise and reconsider the central philosophical, legal and medical premises involved in the insanity debate. A key concern is how recent transdiagnostic and dimensional approaches to psychosis can illuminate the law's understanding of insanity and its relation to mental disorder. The authors eventually raise the question whether the medical model can be reconstructed into a unified insanity model that is valid across the related disciplinary perspectives, and that moves beyond current insanity models.

'A German Whore and no Money at that': Insanity and the Moral and Political Economies of German South West Africa.

While the links between colonial psychiatry and racism figure prominently in histories of the diagnosis, treatment and institutionalisation of the mentally ill in Africa, there is an absence of patient-centred accounts, in the analysis of the efforts of the colonial-era subjects themselves to be pro-active not merely as the mentally ill, by clinical or court definition, but as persons embedded in social relationships with their kin and significant others. Moreover, despite an emerging scholarship, little is known of the experience of European settlers. In this respect there is a need for a more balanced representation, one that shows the ambivalence of colonial psychiatry and its reach into the lives of colonial subjects, Africans and Europeans alike. In this paper I focus on the narratives of a settler in German South West Africa and her efforts to escape diagnosis and institutionalisation. In building on a feminist approach to illness narratives, in particular on the idea of bearing empathic witness, I will explore the ways in which illness narratives can reveal the complex moral and political economies of the colonial world.

A Propensity to Murder: Phrenology in Antebellum Medico-Legal Theory and Practice.

This essay explores the uses of phrenological theory in the realm of jurisprudence between the mid-1830s and 1850s, focusing in particular on the adoption and circulation of phrenological language within medico-legal circles through this period. The article begins by contextualizing medical jurisprudence in early America; at the same time that phrenology was gaining ground in the United States, theories of medical jurisprudence were in flux. I next turn to the concept of the propensities in phrenological theory and their relationship to theories of moral insanity developed in the same period. This article concludes with an exploration of explicit and implicit uses of phrenology, focusing on court cases featuring phrenological expertise or language. The article thus suggests both the uses of phrenology for the building of medico-legal expertise and the extent to which phrenological language around the propensities inflected lay and medico-legal discourse around criminal responsibility and insanity.

Madness and Crime: A Non-Western Historical Perspective.

It is generally acknowledged that the insanity defense has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy. There are references to the insanity defense in the works of Plato and Homer. Little, though, is known about how non-Western cultures dealt with the insane who commit crimes. This article focuses on one non-Western culture: ancient India. The author refers to extant medical texts and Sanskrit literature to argue that the notion that the insane are not responsible for criminal acts was current during that epoch.

Public Perceptions of Moral Insanity in the 19th Century.

The diagnosis of moral insanity was primarily used through the best part of the 19th century to define and justify the psychiatric treatment of a particular type of conduct in which the patient seemed otherwise rational but displayed certain inexplicable and undesirable behaviors deemed socially perverse or "unfit." This article traces the history of this highly contested concept, which mirrors a historical arc in which psychiatry emerges as a discipline and stakes territorial claims on defining and regulating moral behavior. As illustration, I focus on the Hinchman Conspiracy Trial of 1849 as a less known case of wrongful confinement that hinged on proving the diagnosis of moral insanity in court. Moral insanity is a case study of the efforts to medicalize human ethical conduct, an effort starkly resisted by both the courts and the public. Some of the legacies of the term are the contemporary use of insanity as a legal defense, and the ability of patients to dispute psychiatric ward confinement orders in court.

Evolution of forensic psychiatry in Italy over the past 40 years (1978-2018).

In Italy, following the closure of psychiatric hospitals in 1978 and the release of psychiatric patients into community care, there was a mismatch between common psychiatric patients and the convicted mentally ill who were sentenced to serve in state forensic psychiatric hospitals. The recent closure of such structures following the Prime Minister's Decree of April 1, 2008, fostered the need to create new structures. These are called "REMS," and they are based in the community and led by psychiatrists and healthcare staff who may rely on the collaboration of public security staff. This act completed a course of progressive deinstitutionalization of all psychiatric patients. However, some problems remain, and persons regarded as "partially mentally disabled" at the time of crime perpetration must serve part of their sentence in prison and the rest in the aforementioned structures or in psychiatric rehabilitation communities, depending on their claimed "social dangerousness." Psychiatric services now face the ambiguity of treating persons who are considered dangerous by court orders, while the civil law criteria for involuntary hospitalization is based only on the need of care. The complete closure of forensic hospitals may be considered a decisive step forward in the humanization of society, but there are still some issues to address to make it work better. The implementation of multidisciplinary teams and effective psychotherapy, psychoeducational, and rehabilitation interventions can help.

Infanticide and American criminal justice (1980-2018).

Maternal infanticide, or the murder of a child in the first year of life by its mother, is a subject both compelling and repulsive. The victim is innocent, but the perpetrator may be a victim too. In the USA, mentally ill women who commit infanticide may receive long prison sentences or even the death penalty. England, Canada, Australia, and more than 20 European countries have "infanticide laws," which provide more humane treatment and psychiatric care for mentally ill mothers who kill. One of the reasons for the sentences in the USA lies in our archaic insanity defense. In addition, the psychiatric community does not recognize perinatal illness as a formal diagnosis. Furthermore, general forensic psychiatrists who testify in the courtroom have little knowledge of perinatal illness. I suggest that it is time to invite psychiatrists and psychologists as clinicians and scientists to partner with our legal representatives in the courtroom in order to determine laws based on psychiatric facts and not conjecture. The voices of perinatal mental health advocates must continue to be heard in all courtrooms of the USA.

America's First M'Naghten Defense and the Origin of the Black Rage Syndrome.

The 1843 M'Naghten verdict led to reformulation of the British criminal insanity standard, which American jurisdictions noted. In 1846, New York State tried William Freeman for slaying several members of the Van Nest family at their home near Auburn, New York. Mr. Freeman had been obsessed with false imprisonment for horse theft. His defense attorney, former governor William Seward, sought an insanity verdict, citing reaction to racist maltreatment as the cause. Though Mr. Freeman was impaired, a jury found him competent to stand trial. The competency adjudication created confusion in the trial court about the admissibility of medical testimony on criminal responsibility, resulting in exclusion of key psychiatric findings. Meanwhile, the interracial killings caused a sensation in the press, which vilified the defendant. Again, the defense argued that maltreatment created mental illness. A second jury convicted Mr. Freeman and the judge sentenced him to death. Seward filed a Writ of Error, and the New York State Supreme Court reversed the conviction, clarifying competency versus criminal responsibility and proclaiming the M'Naghten Rule as the standard in New York. A century later, attorneys cited Mr. Freeman's dynamics to explain and mitigate the violent actions of some African-Americans. We examine the insanity defense during the 1840s and explore twentieth-century "black rage" reverberations of the Freeman case.

Insane: James Holmes, Clark v. Arizona, and America's Insanity Defense.

Insanity is a legal term of art that changes definitions depending on the legal standard in American jurisprudence, which explains why a man who mental health professionals described as having an uncontrollable obsession with killing people can be found not insane and guilty. This Note addresses the current state of the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 and its widespread implementation at the state level. Part II supplies background information on the history of the insanity defense and how it has transformed over the years in American jurisprudence. Part III provides an analysis of the of the insanity defense. Part IV suggests a new standard of for the insanity defense with a more accommodating application to a wider degree of mental diseases.

Insane acquittees and insane convicts: the rationalization of policy in nineteenth-century Connecticut.

A current situation in Connecticut of whether a violent insane acquittee should be held in a state prison or psychiatric facility raises difficult issues in jurisprudence and medical ethics. Overlooked is that the present case of Francis Anderson reiterates much of the debate over rationalization of policy during the formative nineteenth century. Contrary to theories of social control and state absolutism, governance in Connecticut was largely episodic, indecisive and dilatory over much of the century. The extraordinary urban and industrial transformation at the end of the Gilded Age finally forced a coherent response in keeping with longstanding legal and medical perspectives.

'They accused me of strangling her': epilepsy and violence debate in Croatia at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Nineteenth-century psychiatry shifted its focus to the brain as the seat of mental disorders. With a new understanding of mental disorders arose the need to consult forensic psychiatrists in cases of criminal acts committed by persons with mental illness. This article focuses on three murders committed by 'epileptics' at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries in Croatia. An analysis of these cases will help to situate forensic psychiatry at the turn of the century within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and reveal the authority that forensic experts wielded in the courts. We will argue that Cesare Lombroso's biological theory of crime, as well as the influence of eugenicists and pharmaceutical companies, shaped the long-standing relationship between epilepsy and violent behaviour.

Moral insanity and psychological disorder: the hybrid roots of psychiatry.

This paper traces the significance of the diagnosis of 'moral insanity' (and the related diagnoses of 'monomania' and ' manie sans délire') to the development of psychiatry as a profession in the nineteenth century. The pioneers of psychiatric thought were motivated to explore such diagnoses because they promised public recognition in the high status surroundings of the criminal court. Some success was achieved in presenting a form of expertise that centred on the ability of the experts to detect quite subtle, 'psychological' forms of dangerous madness within the minds of offenders in France and more extensively in England. Significant backlash in the press against these new ideas pushed the profession away from such psychological exploration and back towards its medical roots that located criminal insanity simply within the organic constitution of its sufferers.

'Insane criminals' and the 'criminally insane': criminal asylums in Norway, 1895-1940.

This article looks into the establishment and development of two criminal asylums in Norway. Influenced by international psychiatry and a European reorientation of penal law, the country chose to institutionalize insane criminals and criminally insane in separate asylums. Norway's first criminal asylum was opened in 1895, and a second in 1923, both in Trondheim. Both asylums quickly filled up with patients who often stayed for many years, and some for their entire lives. The official aim of these asylums was to confine and treat dangerous and disruptive lunatics. Goffman postulates that total institutions typically fall short of their official aims. This study examines records of the patients who were admitted to the two Trondheim asylums, in order to see if the official aims were achieved.

Crime and madness at the opposite shores of the Adriatic: moral insanity in Italian and Croatian psychiatric discourses

In the 19th century, fervid debates arose in the young psychiatric science about how to deal with and to scientifically categorize human behaviour which was perceived as dangerous to society, and as criminal. There were two concepts that stood out in these transnationally held discussions; namely moral insanity and later on, psychopathy. Following recent approaches in the cultural and social history of psychiatry, we understand moral insanity and psychopathy as social constructs, which are determined by the evolution in psychiatric knowledge, and also by laws, codes and social norms of particular historical timeframes. Our task is to discuss the evolution and adoption of these concepts in two linguistically different, but still historically profoundly entangled regions, namely in Italian and Croatian psychiatric discourses at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. Our analysis of two of the most important medical and psychiatric journals of the time shows that psychiatric debates on antisocial and criminal behaviour were in numerous ways entangled and shaped by the way the two societies scientifically, legally, and institutionally struggled over the question of how to detect and control the mentally incapacitated criminal offender.

Madness and crime: Zefinha, the longest confined woman in Brazil.

Living in a forensic hospital for the last 38 years, Josefa da Silva is the longest female inhabitant surviving the penal and psychiatric regime in Brazil. This paper analyses dossier, judicial proceedings, interviews and photographs about her. The psychiatric report is the key component of the medical and penal doubling of criminal insanity. Twelve psychiatric reports illustrate three time frames of the court files: abnormality, danger, and abandonment. The psychiatric authority over confinement has moved from discipline to security, and from disciplinary security to social assistance. In the arrangement between the penal and psychiatric powers, the judge recognizes the medical authority over the truth of insanity. It is the medicine of the reasons for Zefinha's internment that altered over the decades.

“ Eu não sou presa de juízo, não”: Zefinha, a louca perigosa mais antiga do Brasil / Madness and crime: Zefinha, the longest confined woman in Brazil

Resumo Abandonada há 38 anos no manicômio judiciário de Alagoas, Josefa da Silva é a mulher mais antiga sobrevivente do regime penal-psiquiátrico no Brasil. Dossiê, processo judicial, entrevistas e fotografias compõem o corpusde análise deste ensaio. O laudo psiquiátrico é a peça-chave para o dobramento médico-penal na loucura criminosa. Doze laudos psiquiátricos ilustram as três metamorfoses do arquivo judiciário: anormalidade, perigo e abandono. A autoridade psiquiátrica sobre a clausura movimentou-se da disciplina para a segurança, e da segurança disciplinar para a asilar-assistencial. No arranjo entre os poderes penal e psiquiátrico, o juiz reconhece a autoridade médica para a verdade da loucura. É a medicina das razões sobre a clausura de Zefinha que se altera nas décadas de produção do arquivo.

Abstract Living in a forensic hospital for the last 38 years, Josefa da Silva is the longest female inhabitant surviving the penal and psychiatric regime in Brazil. This paper analyses dossier, judicial proceedings, interviews and photographs about her. The psychiatric report is the key component of the medical and penal doubling of criminal insanity. Twelve psychiatric reports illustrate three time frames of the court files: abnormality, danger, and abandonment. The psychiatric authority over confinement has moved from discipline to security, and from disciplinary security to social assistance. In the arrangement between the penal and psychiatric powers, the judge recognizes the medical authority over the truth of insanity. It is the medicine of the reasons for Zefinha’s internment that altered over the decades.