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A Study of Arsonists in a Special Security Hospital

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

D. W. McKerracher  and
A. J. I. Dacre
D. W. McKerracher
Affiliation:
Rampton Hospital, Notts
A. J. I. Dacre
Affiliation:
The Mental Hospital, Barbados; Rampton Hospital
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Extract

During the course of a recent analysis of one year's male admissions to Rampton Hospital, and of male referrals to the psychology department, attempts were made to distinguish various offence patterns by means of psychological laboratory techniques. The results were largely disappointing, owing mainly to the great amount of overlap in the numerous crimes committed by the same patients. However, using a galvanic skin response (G.S.R.) conditioning procedure similar to that described by Tong (1958), it was noted that those patients who had committed arson revealed a normal distribution of conditioned responses (see Table I), whereas every other offence pattern was positively skewed towards the low condition-ability end of the dimension (Esher, Orme, McKerracher, 1965). This suggested that further differentiation might be possible, and a full analysis was made of a number of case history factors in those patients who had, amongst other crimes, been charged with and found guilty of, committing arson. Comparison was made with the remaining patients, guilty of other crimes but not of arson.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 112 , Issue 492 , November 1966 , pp. 1151 - 1154
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1966 

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References

Esher, F. J. S., Orme, J. E., and McKerracher, D. W. (1965). “Replicatory studies of two psycho-physiological techniques of assessing mentally subnormal patients.” J. ment. Sub., 11, Part 2, 93–98.Google Scholar
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Tong, J. E. (1958). “Stress reactivity and its relation to disordered (delinquent) behaviour in mental defective subjects.” Doctoral dissertation, Sheffield Univ. Library.Google Scholar
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