Creating born criminals

Posted: October 17th, 2013

Creating born criminals

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Creating born criminals

The decline of eugenic criminology was mainly influenced by introduction of psychiatry. Unlike psychology, psychiatry has more details on criminology. Psychiatrists insisted that studying a criminal should not be superficial. They argued that conclusions should not be based on only the cross section of a person. An intensive scrutiny involves using an individual’s longitudinal cross section. Eugenic criminology was based on theories but psychiatry is founded on research-based information that is more reliable.

When psychiatry came into place, improvements were done in handling criminals who were feeble minded. Initially, they would remain prison in their lifetime, regardless of the offence. Psychiatry came into place with a plan. It involved examining this criminals and classifying them according to their conditions. Further research was carried on this group of people. This approach was better than relying on the feeble-minded theory. This theory states that all criminals are feeble minded. This is why they keep committing crime. According to the latest studies, not all criminals have mental disorders. Most go through psychiatry evaluation and the results prove they are mentally stable.

Technology and current education has played a part in declining eugenic criminology. When the eugenic criminology was in place, there was a certain law that was passed. Feeble-minded people were supposed to be sterilized, especially those who were involved in prostitution. This was done to prevent them from reproducing unnecessarily. It would have also helped to maintain quality of the population. Offsprings of feeble-minded people would have defectives, which was unwanted in the community. Only one person went through with this law before the bureau of Social Hygiene intervened.

They purchased a land and built a laboratory and what was called a clearinghouse. These two facilities were used as examination rooms for scientific work. They examined an inmate’s family lineage, psychology, pathology and history. Using the results, they determined which inmates would have to spend their lives in incarceration. This was a better way of separating severe cases from minor ones. Mentally unstable inmates were given different treatments and conditions, depending on the state of their minds.

Psychiatry studies brought knowledge about psychopaths. It definition says that they are mental unstable but not necessarily defective delinquents. Many criminals have passed intelligence tests therefore; it would not be true to consider all of them insane. However, their mental instability makes them acquire a trend of committing crime. They are said to be more dangerous than other offenders are because this condition is biological and inborn. Not all cases are caused by inheritance. This is improved knowledge from what people understood during eugenic criminology.

The objective of the psychiatrists is to help mentally ill people and not specifically unstable criminals. This is a better approach because psychiatry is not only about criminology, unlike eugenic criminology. Psychiatry takes care of emotional disorders and other psychological related diseases. This is by making early detections and treated them until they are fully eliminated. Further research is being done on diseases that still prove difficult and there is still hope for success. It aims at helping the society as a whole. Psychiatry is focusing on creating awareness on prevention and not just cure. This highly contributes to a mentally healthy society.

The law has contributed in declining the eugenic criminology. There was a law that was passes that the entire defective delinquent should be sterilized. It was meant to control disability in the society. Only one man was affected by this law before it was disregarded. This happened because this law was not acceptable to people. They felt it was inhuman to sterilize people against their will. This is why the Social Hygiene brought a better solution to this problem. Today, there are better laws concerning mentally sick people who are mostly sexual offenders.

Research and improvement of technology has revealed that some mental conditions are curable. For example, few cases of psychopaths can be cured. There is a wide range of therapies and medication that mentally sick people can use. Mentally sick criminals are arrested and sentenced but they are also committed in mental clinics for treatment. After they are through with their medication, they go to serve their sentence.

Psychology is still trying to identify the mental diseases in criminals. This will be a great achievement to them because it will surpass psychiatry. However, it will require substantial prove and not just simple tests ran on criminals. They want to prove that the maladies in these lawbreakers make them dangerous than psychopaths or feeble-minded people. One weakness psychology had over psychiatry was the feeble-minded theory. Psychiatrists argued that this theory explains a very small portion of crime. There was need to search answers for the rest of the portion. This was why psychiatry made eugenic criminology to erode, since it was mainly based on psychology.

Eugenic criminology was generally made to decline by the changing and dynamic world. This specifically applies to the field of medicine. There are so many inventions and facts, which have come. They are more enhanced than eugenic criminology hence; they make it obsolete. There are advanced way of studying criminology, which challenge the concept of eugenic criminology. It is not a fact that crime is an inborn trait. It is not also true to conclude that it is a mental disease or that all criminals are mentally sick. They could have mental instability but not insanity. A good number of them of them have confirmed this by passing intelligence tests.