Psychiatrists and the Transformation of Juvenile Justice in Philadelphia, 1965-1972.

In the late 1960s, Philadelphia psychiatrists evaluated every child who interacted with the city's juvenile courts. These evaluations had an important role in determining the placement and treatment of these children, and emphasized the therapeutic nature of the juvenile courts at the time. Relying on extensive case studies compiled by the Philadelphia Department of Public Welfare, this study reconstructs the roles of psychiatrists in the experiences of children interacting with the juvenile justice system, to shed light on a hitherto unknown aspect of these children's care. Gradually, the emphasis in juvenile justice shifted from a therapeutic approach to a more punitive one, from the mid 1970s and onwards. Yet the same structures of juvenile justice which allowed for individual discretion and "tailoring" of interventions to suit the child's perceived needs, rather than to fit the severity of his or her infraction, lost much of their therapeutic rationale. Still, many of these characteristics of the juvenile justice system, and in particular the practice of indeterminate sentencing, remain in place today. Questioning the role of mental health professionals in the creation and perpetuation of this flawed and often unfair infrastructure is an important first step in contemplating reforms.

The Psychohistory of Child Maltreatment Among Antebellum Slaveholders.

Examining the inner workings of the slaveholder family, including slave caretakers, this article probes the psychodynamics of slaveholder development to assess the extent of child abuse in the Old South. Childcare was haphazard and premised on paternal absence, maternal ambivalence, and the exigencies of slave surrogacy. Corporal punishment, sanctified by southern religion, was the rule. The likelihood of slave negligence and retaliatory attacks against slaveholder children are addressed. Childrearing practices such as swaddling, aunt adoption, and maternal incest are considered, as well as the possible usage of a West African cleansing ritual. The article classifies planter families within the Ambivalent Mode of parent-child relations and suggests the restaging of childhood trauma as the underlying dynamic in the march to civil war.

Punitive limb amputation.

BACKGROUND: Limb amputation has been carried out through the ages as a punitive method in various parts of the world. This article highlights the historical and societal background associated with the use of punitive limb amputation. METHODS: We performed an extensive electronic search of the pertinent literature augmented with a hand-search of additional sources. RESULTS: Evidence for punitive amputation is available as early as the court of the Babylonian Code of King Hammurabi (circa 1750 Before the Common Era [BCE]), which imposed punitive limb amputations on slaves who used force against free citizens. Other reports provided evidence that punitive amputation was used as early as the 4th century BCE in ancient Peru. Limb amputation restored law and order during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Amputation as a punitive instrument prevailed in Europe throughout the 17th century. During the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement in Europe approached criminal law from a humanistic perspective, incorporated it into societal practice, and promoted its preventive dimensions. Punitive limb amputation still exists in several Arab and African countries. CONCLUSION: Amputation as a punitive or correctional method has its roots in old civilizations. It has been used through the ages in various parts of the world. While it has been abandoned in modern western societies, punitive amputation is still used in several third-world countries.

Orthopedic surgery in ancient Egypt.

BACKGROUND: Ancient Egypt might be considered the cradle of medicine. The modern literature is, however, sometimes rather too enthusiastic regarding the procedures that are attributed an Egyptian origin. I briefly present and analyze the claims regarding orthopedic surgery in Egypt, what was actually done by the Egyptians, and what may have been incorrectly ascribed to them. METHODS: I reviewed the original sources and also the modern literature regarding surgery in ancient Egypt, concentrating especially on orthopedic surgery. RESULTS: As is well known, both literary sources and the archaeological/osteological material bear witness to treatment of various fractures. The Egyptian painting, often claimed to depict the reduction of a dislocated shoulder according to Kocher's method, is, however, open to interpretation. Therapeutic amputations are never depicted or mentioned in the literary sources, while the specimens suggested to demonstrate such amputations are not convincing. INTERPRETATION: The ancient Egyptians certainly treated fractures of various kinds, and with varying degrees of success. Concerning the reductions of dislocated joints and therapeutic amputations, there is no clear evidence for the existence of such procedures. It would, however, be surprising if dislocations were not treated, even though they have not left traces in the surviving sources. Concerning amputations, the general level of Egyptian surgery makes it unlikely that limb amputations were done, even if they may possibly have been performed under extraordinary circumstances.

American juvenile justice system: history in the making.

The original theory behind separating juvenile offenders from adult offenders was to provide care and direction for youngsters instead of isolation and punishment. This idea took hold in the 19th century and became mainstream by the early 20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, public concern grew because of a perceived lack of effectiveness and lack of rights. The Supreme Court made a series of rulings solidifying juvenile rights including the right to receive notice of charges, the right to have an attorney and the right to have charges proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In the 1980s, the public view was that the juvenile court system was too lenient and that juvenile crimes were on the rise. In the 1990s, many states passed punitive laws, including mandatory sentencing and blanket transfers to adult courts for certain crimes. As a result, the pendulum is now swinging back toward the middle from rehabilitation toward punishment.

God's punishment or bad strategy: anti-epidemic measures in the lower Neretva basin at the time of cholera in 1886.

The epidemic of cholera that took place in the Neretva basin in 1886 was part of the fifth pandemic wave that was spreading throughout Europe. Based on the death records, vital statistics and the newspaper articles from that period, in this paper we present the emergence and the course this epidemic. In the context of analysis and experience of the epidemic of cholera in the lower Neretva basin, the newspaper articles have been recognized as a sensitive register of the changes of behavioural patterns, the way of speaking, the mechanisms of reacting and adjusting to the spreading epidemic, but also the resistance to it. It is based on this material that we can make conclusions about the relationship between the individual and the collective in the time of danger, as well as about the particularities of historical events that have been left out in other sources. Two potential paths for cholera to enter the area of the lower Neretva basin have been identified: one from the sea and the other from land, via the neighbouring country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Quarantine measures had been taken in order to prevent the onslaught of the epidemic, a sanitary cordon was organized, disinfection of the land was carried out and a cholera hospital organized in Metkovic. However, despite the undertaken measures, an inefficiency of the government organs was obvious, because their actions mainly applied to formal fulfilment of anti-epidemic measures and they quite easily handed over individual initiatives to physicians. The analysis of strategies concerning the application of anti-epidemic measures in the past can be useful for learning more about the multilayered nature of social mechanisms in the time of epidemics, which makes it convincing and valuable even in the present day.

Race and imprisonments: vigilante violence, minority threat, and racial politics.

The effects of lynchings on criminal justice outcomes have seldom been examined. Recent findings also are inconsistent about the effects of race on imprisonments. This study uses a pooled time-series design to assess lynching and racial threat effects on state imprisonments from 1972 to 2000. After controlling for Republican strength, conservatism, and other factors, lynch rates explain the growth in admission rates. The findings also show that increases in black residents produce subsequent expansions in imprisonments that likely are attributable to white reactions to this purported menace. But after the percentage of blacks reaches a substantial threshold­and the potential black vote becomes large enough to begin to reduce these harsh punishments­reductions in prison admissions occur. These results also confirm a political version of racial threat theory by indicating that increased Republican political strength produces additional imprisonments.

On some paleopathological examples of amputation and the implications for healthcare in 13th-17th century Lithuania.

OBJECTIVE: To explore care that was likely provided to an adult male amputee from medieval Lithuania, positioning analysis within what is known of contemporary amputation practices. MATERIALS: Three sets of skeletal remains with evidence for amputation, dating to between the 13th-17th centuries AD and recovered during different archaeological excavations in Vilnius, Lithuania. METHODS: Macroscopic inspection of lesions, with additional X-ray analysis of the main subject. The Index of Care was used to investigate possible caregiving. RESULTS: Two individuals experienced amputation of a single element, and the third experienced bilateral hand amputation. Only one individual displayed healing. Historic sources suggest use of amputation for punitive purposes during this period, and judicial punishment is proposed as the most likely reason for amputation in at least two cases. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence of long-term healing in one individual suggests receipt of care. This individual likely relied on family and/or community members for survival immediately following amputation, and subsequently for support in managing disability. SIGNIFICANCE: Successfully combining osteology with history in a framework for analyzing care provision in past Eastern European society, this study underlines the critical importance of context in undertaking bioarchaeology of care analyses. It also adds two examples of perimortem abscissions in this region to the paleopathological record. LIMITATIONS: Our approach relied on skeletal interpretation. Soft tissue was lost to decomposition and no relevant archaeological evidence was found in association with the remains. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: A review of skeletal collections may allow identification of overlooked cases of amputation (and care).

Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiments: origins and early evolution.

Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiments remain one of the most inspired contributions in the field of social psychology. Although Milgram undertook more than 20 experimental variations, his most (in)famous result was the first official trial run - the remote condition and its 65% completion rate. Drawing on many unpublished documents from Milgram's personal archive at Yale University, this article traces the historical origins and early evolution of the obedience experiments. Part 1 presents the previous experiences that led to Milgram's conception of his rudimentary research idea and then details the role of his intuition in its refinement. Part 2 traces the conversion of Milgram's evolving idea into a reality, paying particular attention to his application of the exploratory method of discovery during several pilot studies. Both parts illuminate Milgram's ad hoc introduction of various manipulative techniques and subtle tension-resolving refinements. The procedural adjustments continued until Milgram was confident that the first official experiment would produce a high completion rate, a result contrary to expectations of people's behaviour. Showing how Milgram conceived of, then arrived at, this first official result is important because the insights gained may help others to determine theoretically why so many participants completed this experiment.

School discipline and disruptive classroom behavior: the moderating effects of student perceptions.

This study examines the relationship between school discipline and student classroom behavior. A traditional deterrence framework predicts that more severe discipline will reduce misbehavior. In contrast, normative perspectives suggest that compliance depends upon commitment to rules and authority, including perceptions of fairness and legitimacy. Using school and individual-level data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and multilevel regression modeling, the author finds support for the normative perspective. Students who perceive school authority as legitimate and teacher­student relations as positive are rated as less disruptive. While perceptions of fairness also predict lower disruptions, the effects are mediated by positive teacher­student relations. Contrary to the deterrence framework, more school rules and higher perceived strictness predicts more, not less, disruptive behavior. In addition, a significant interaction effect suggests that attending schools with more severe punishments may have the unintended consequence of generating defiance among certain youth.

Residential Institutions Redress Board of the Irish Government 2002-2018.

In 1999, the Irish Government commissioned a report into the abuse of children who were in the care of facilities managed and run under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church in the Irish Republic in the 1940s and 1950s. It reported in 2009. A Redress Board was set up to investigate and compensate claimants who were abused physically and mentally as children when living in these facilities. The Board sat for 16 years. In total, 16,650 applications were processed with awards worth €970 million. Of these, 1069 applications were withdrawn, refused or had a nil award. This report on work of the Commission and the Board derives from the histories given and the expert assessment of 19 claimants for compensation. Their ages ranged between 47 and 72 years at the time of the expert's assessment.

Who lives and dies on death row? Race, ethnicity, and post-sentence outcomes in Texas.

A substantial body of research has explored the extent to which the race of offenders and victims influences who receives a death sentence for capital crimes. Little is known about how race and ethnicity might pattern death-row outcomes. Drawing upon evidence from male offenders sentenced to death in Texas during the years 1974 through 2009, we extend recent research by examining whether the race and ethnicity of offenders and victims and a number of offender, victim, and crime attributes influence the likelihood of executions and sentence relief (whereby prisoners leave death row). Cox regression analyses are used in conjunction with a multiple-imputation method for handling a modest amount of missing data. The results show that cases involving minorities­with black or Latino offenders or victims­have lower hazards of execution than cases in which both offenders and victims are white. Victim and offender race and ethnicity have little to no independent effect upon the hazard of sentence relief.

The cross politics of Ecuador's penal state.

This essay examines inmate "crucifixion protests" in Ecuador's largest prison during 2003-04. It shows how the preventively incarcerated-of whom there are thousands-managed to effectively denounce their extralegal confinement by embodying the violence of the Christian crucifixion story. This form of protest, I argue, simultaneously clarified and obscured the multiple layers of sovereign power that pressed down on urban crime suspects, who found themselves persecuted and forsaken both outside and within the space of the prison. Police enacting zero-tolerance policies in urban neighborhoods are thus a key part of the penal state, as are the politically threatened family members of the indicted, the sensationalized local media, distrustful neighbors, prison guards, and incarcerated mafia. The essay shows how the politico-theological performance of self-crucifixion responded to these internested forms of sovereign violence, and were briefly effective. The inmates' cross intervention hence provides a window into the way sovereignty works in the Ecuadorean penal state, drawing out how incarceration trends and new urban security measures interlink, and produce an array of victims.

Legal outcomes of all suspected neonaticides in Finland 1980-2000.

This nationwide study examined legal outcomes and possible psychiatric diagnoses of suspected cases of neonaticide. Neonaticide is commonly defined as the killing of a newborn on the day of its birth, and is considered to have not only a low prevalence but also a high level of concealed criminality. This hidden nature guided us to find out what the final legal outcomes of suspected neonaticide were. It was a comprehensive, retrospective, register-based study of all 44 cases of suspected neonaticide that occurred 1980-2000 as recorded by Statistics Finland. The 44 cases were ascribed to 40 suspects, three of whom died themselves during the offence. Twelve cases (27%) were eventually prosecuted and the accused convicted of neonaticide. Their mean sentence was 617 days (SD 216, range 300-1095 days). Fourteen offenders (35% of offenders) underwent a forensic psychiatric examination, out of which four (29%) were diagnosed with a psychotic disorder and 10 (71%) with a personality disorder. Six of the 14 women were not sentenced as criminally irresponsible and three of them were committed to involuntary hospital care. Nine cases (20% of cases) were still unsolved, and in eight (18%) cases the offence title had changed into something other than neonaticide. We concluded that since only 41% of suspected neonaticides completed the court process as neonaticides, the previous results from studies on neonaticide may present a subgroup of offenders, not the whole picture. Therefore, further discussion and research is needed to elucidate this perplexing, sad, and utterly redundant offence in modern society, to prevent it, and develop treatment programs for the offenders.

Three cases of feet and hand amputation from Medieval Estremoz, Portugal.

Peri-mortem limb amputations are rarely reported in the paleopathological literature. The cases reported here concern severing of both hands and feet observed in three adult male skeletons, exhumed from the medieval Portuguese necropolis of Rossio do Marquês de Pombal, Estremoz, Portugal. The fact that they were found in the same site, in graves placed side by side, that all are young males, and that the three skeletons show similar perimortem injuries, make this a unique case meriting detailed analysis. Considering the lesions' location and pattern, as well as historical data, we hypothesize that this is a case of amputation as a consequence of judicial punishment. Estremoz was an important city in sustaining the Royal power at a regional scale during the medieval period.

Prison break: Karl Menninger's The Crime of Punishment and its reception in U.S. psychology.

In 1968, Karl Menninger, a highly visible and vocal U.S. psychiatrist, published a call to action on prison reform, The Crime of Punishment (Menninger, 1966/1968). This widely circulated book's central idea is that punishment as practiced in penal settings is an injustice amounting to a crime. At the outset, The Crime of Punishment quickly achieved national attention. Within mainstream psychology, its antipunishment message encountered a changed climate in which punishment, thought ineffective during the period 1930 through 1960, was redefined as an effective component in learning. It also met competition from the contemporaneous Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973), which quickly rose to equivalent media presence and superior disciplinary prominence. Both the Stanford Prison Experiment and The Crime of Punishment survived in the antireform era of hyperincarceration after 1974 as parallel examples of reform activism, one secular and one religious in character, illustrating some convergences of aim between psychology and psychiatry outside of specifically clinical issues. (PsycINFO Database Record