Abstract
IN the July issue of the Quarterly Review, Mr. Claud Mullins, the well-known Metropolitan Police Court magistrate, remarks that some believe that the discoveries of modern psychology completely rob our present methods of trial and punishment of all justification, and that nearly all who have committed any serious breach of the criminal law should pass into the hands of psychotherapists and thus be cured, while others deny that our present legal and penal methods are in any way affected by psychology. Both extreme opinions, however, are gradually diminishing. Psychotherapists, by closer contact with delinquents, have become more modest in their practical attitude, while magistrates and lawyers are beginning to realize that psychologists can be of assistance. Mr. Mullins himself has sent innumerable delinquents to psychotherapists, and in many cases has found the results satisfactory. It must, however, be borne in mind that psychologists are concerned mainly with an individual while the Bench is concerned also and mainly with society. Certain criminals, such as fraudulent financiers, fire-raisers, stealing postmen or railway servants, policemen who accept bribes and alcoholic motorists who kill or maim, cannot be dealt with solely or even mainly from the point of view of what is best for the delinquent, and in such cases severe punishment is required to discourage others. While regarding it as highly dangerous for the Bench to assume the functions of the psychotherapist, Mr. Mullins maintains that some knowledge of psychology and psychotherapy is desirable alike in the judge, recorder, stipendiary magistrate and lay justices.
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Delinquency and Psychology. Nature 144, 626 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144626a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144626a0