Crimes of Violence by Mentally Abnormal Offenders A psychiatric and epidemiological study in the Federal German Republic

Originally published in German in 1973, and first published in English as this Cambridge edition in 1982, this is a detailed and systematic account of the extent to which mentally abnormal offenders are likely to commit crimes of major violence, based upon a study of all the 533 men and women in the Federal German Republic from 1955 to 1964 who were detained in hospitals after committing homicide or near-homicide. The authors calculated that such patients are no more, but also no less, dangerous than the rest of the population, and that the policy of treating psychotic or seriously subnormal patients in the community does not expose the public to risk. The book makes important suggestions for the prevention of such disasters by describing the diagnoses, special symptoms and social situations which involve a special risk, especially to close relatives and those with whom the patient is emotionally involved.

List of authors and collaborators; Foreword; Preface; Note on the translation; 1. Introduction: the problem viewed in the light of the psychiatric literature; 2. Previous studies of violence in the mentally abnormal; 3. Questions posed, population studied, methodology; 4. Results I: general data; 5. Results II: overall comparisons of sex, age and diagnosis; 6. Results III: comparative risk of violence in the mentally abnormal and in the control population; 7. Results IV: personality, illness and background of the crime–patient comparisons; 8. Results V: the crime and the victim; 9. Results VI: qualitative analysis of small diagnostic groups; 10. Summary and discussion; Appendix: data sheets; Bibliography; Notes; Name index; Subject index.

A detailed and systematic 1973 account of the extent to which mentally abnormal offenders are likely to commit violent crimes, based upon a study of all the 533 men and women in the Federal German Republic from 1955 to 1964 who were detained in hospitals after committing homicide or near-homicide.