Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:58:13.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Morbid Psychology of Criminals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

David Nicolson*
Affiliation:
Convict Prisons Department, H.M. Civil Service

Extract

The inner world of prison life is one of the best fields for the study of psychological questions, speculative as well as practical If the circumstances are somewhat exceptional, they have the special advantage of being uniform in their application; and this uniformity represents a standard to which individual minds, or particular groups of mind, bear a relation, and at which they may be tested. Imprisonment is the very antithesis of social usage, an involuntary servitude taking the place of the liberty of the subject, and it is surely a matter of no little interest to watch how social beings, varying in moral and intellectual status, bear themselves under confinement and a complete change in their circumstances and surroundings.

Type
Part 1.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1873 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.