Psychopathology in prisons

The philosophic doctrine that our actions are free is generally based on the consciousness of freedom; and in its legal aspect on the sense of accountability or responsibility. That this consciousness of freedom exists is a psychical fact, and therefore a psychological examination of the conviction, an analysis of this psychical phenomenon, is a necessary preliminary to the philosophical inquiry.

It may be contended that the question of a transcendental ego or noumenal will behind, superior to the law of causation and capable of free choice, is not legitimately within the domain of psychology; but it is manifest that if psychology, in unfolding and genetically explaining the phenomena of volition, prove that this mode of consciousness does not necessitate any such idea of a transcendental will, that in fact this sense of freedom may and does accompany actions which are absolutely determined, the psychological foundation is taken away from the doctrine of free will. This task Professor Hoche of Freiburg ¹ has set himself to accomplish. He is frankly a determinist, entirely at variance with the Kantian doctrine of a self-determining will. He affirms that the observations of psychopathology must be taken into account in the normal psychology, because the mental activities of the insane do not differ intrinsically from those of the so-called normal, but only in degree; and that, moreover, there exist all gradations from the sane to the insane.

Now, the feeling of freedom exists in many forms of mental disease, particularly and to a high degree in mania, as to whose unfreedom of volition no doubt can exist, and this feeling of freedom, Dr. Hoche contends, is related to the central emission of motor impulses.

In the next place, the observations of psychopathologists show that in the empiric character much greater differences exist in permanent, deeply-seated, elementary qualities than is customarily recognized by theoretic psychology. The value, therefore, of conclusions based on the hypothesis that in all men there are certain psychical processes, particularly within the region of the emotions, which are for all men identical, is thus at once nullified, and with these necessarily, Dr. Hoche says, conclusions founded on the belief in an ever and everywhere present conscience. The conscience, says the author, exhibits the same variations as do other emotions. With the insane the conscience wastes, or it is subject to objectively unfounded fluctuations. Also in neurotic and borderland cases this variability of conscience is found.

The clear parallelism in fact between material and mental processes does not permit of such a distinction as that the principle of causality holds good only for the material and not for the mental side of these processes.

The practical importance of these doctrines lies in its relation to the penal treatment of that large class of malefactors – and only those with an intimate acquaintance with prison populations know how surprisingly large this class is – who are neither of normal mental and physical make-up nor actually insane, degenerates, hereditarily-burdened individuals, or, to use the prison term, the weak minded. A system of graduated punishments is, Dr. Hoche says, futile, and punishment at all unreasonable, and for these he would substitute individual treatment decided by the medico-psychological examination, and some form of sequestration so as to render them harmless to society.

We believe that those who have had experience in dealing with prisoners in this country would be very much disposed to agree with Professor Hoche on the ground that the separation of weak-minded from ordinary prisoners would conduce to better management of the latter class. Dr. Hoche has had wide experience in such matters, is the author of the important work on forensic psychiatry already reviewed in our pages, ² and his views deserve the most serious gravest consideration.