1764 Wenzky, Oskar. Pressemitteilungen über Kapitalverbrechen. (Communications to the press on capital crimes.) Die Polizei, 56(5):134-136, 1965. The rights and duties of German police departments with regard to information which they may release to the press and other mass media are governed by ministerial regulations of the various provinces. These reg ulations also govern the cooperation between the district attorney's office and police when information is requested by one of the mass media. In North-Rhine-Westphalia, the district attorney's office decides whether and in which way the press is to be informed in capital crime cases. The question arises whether this prerogative of the district attorney meets the needs of police during its investigations, and if this regulation does not in fact conflict with provisions of the German code of criminal procedure calling for immediate investigations and measures. Under a regulation of 1922, the Prussian police was authorized to release information on capital crimes without first consulting the district attorney as to whether or not such information was in the interest of furthering an effective criminal investigation. In Regulations with regard to crime information which police may release to the mass media in West Germany generally recognize the right of the public to information; the demand for news, however, must not be allowed to jeopardize the police and the office of the public prosecutor in their investigations by premature and inappropriate press releases. addition, the police must keep in mind that a too detailed description of a crime tends to invite imitators. Opinions differ on whether the mention of the names of police officials who vitally contributed to the solution of a particular case is avoidable and practices also differ widely; only older reg Abstracts 1764-1766 ulations provide that individual police officials should not be advertised in this way. The new regulation of North-RhineWestphalia governing police relations with the press provides that the right to release information to the press in capital crime cases may be delegated to the police. This generally corresponds to the routine procedures followed by the police in the past. The new situation created by the new German code of criminal procedure under which defendants' rights have been further increased and strengthened will demand ever greater cooperation between the police and public prosecutors. Oskar Wenzky, Universität Köln, West Germany. 1766 Fiedler, Charlotte. Eigentumsdelikte Minderjähriger in kriminologischer Sicht. (Property offenses of minors from the criminological point of view.) Die Polizei, 56(6):184-187, 1965. All Ten to twelve percent of all juvenile offenders in West Germany are female, but in the area of thefts in department stores, the ratio is higher: of 345 juveniles who were arrested in Hamburg for shoplifting, 114 were girls. In another group of 100 adolescents arrested for the same offense, fifty-eight were girls. Twenty such cases which have come to the attention of authorities were examined to determine the causes of the thefts and the characteristics of the girls. twenty girls came from orderly families including two who had been born illegitimately. Seven of the girls were students, eight were in vocational training, four were employed, and only one was unemployed; only two were known recidivists and of the remaining eighteen only two indicated having committed previous undetected thefts. Six of the girls committed their thefts in cooperation with another friend; only two admitted having come to the store with the intention to steal; eleven had enough money on their persons to purchase the stolen articles. Only three girls indicated specific purposes and motives for their offense, while the rest could only gives such vague explanations as "I could not resist" and "I wanted the dress so much." The two characteristics common to almost for their behavior must be sought in the in- girls were seduced into committing thefts by a favorable situation and yielded to their temptations because the risk seemed so small. The Ganser Syndrome, reported in 1897, is becoming a rarity and is found most commonly now in mental institutions, not prisons. Symptoms of the syndrome can be found in depressed and depersonalized prisoners who exhibit the characteristic inability to remember, speak, or answer questions correctly. If more attention were given to the precise clinical state, the setting, the course of the illness, and the objective response of the patient to repeated and prolonged examination, progress might be made toward finding a solution to the cause of the syndrome and the patient's motivation. Both the syndrome itself, the hysterical state closely related to schizophrenia, and the symptoms, vague and incorrect responses to simple questions, may appear in a variety of individuals from normal ones to psychotics. The slight relationship with crime of both the syndrome and the symptoms is due to the warden's vigilance and the slight correlation between crime and mental illness in general. No address. 1768 Quinney, Richard. Is criminal behavior deviant behavior? British Journal of Criminology, 5(2):132-142, 1965. Criminal laws and social norms are not synonymous because of cultural differentiation, the factors influencing the formulation of criminal law, and constant social change. Similarly, criminal behavior and deviant behavior can be treated as two separate orders of behavior because much criminal behavior is actually only behavior oriented to norms other than those embodied in the criminal law. Α study of the lawmaking process, the groups influencing legislation, and the social norms underlying criminal law may provide a level of analysis for the explanation of criminal behavior. Much criminal behavior in a modern, heterogeneous society may represent a normal response to the unwieldly accumulation of criminal laws. When criminal laws no longer receive social support, or the laws become obsolete because of new scientific knowledge, they should be changed and new ones enacted as are necessary. No address. 1769 Bartholomew, Allen. The incidence of a criminal record in 1,000 consecutive alcoholics. British Journal of Criminology, 5(2):143-149, 1965. In a survey of alcoholics at the Alexandria Clinic in Melbourne, 1,000 consecutive cases were examined to determine the incidence of crime among alcoholics. The number of pre vious convictions and the nature of the convictions were examined for the group of eight hundred fifty-three men and one hundred fortyseven women. Thirty-nine and six tenths percent of the men, and fourteen and seven tenths percent of the women had previous convictions; thus thirty-five and six tenths percent of the total group had criminal records. study of the nature of the offenses showed that the relationship between alcoholism and crime is in terms of petty, rather than serious, offenses. Allen Bartholomew, Alexandria Clinic, Melbourne, Australia. A 1770 Connell, P. H. Views on psychiatry and approved schools. British Journal of Criminology, 5(2):150-167, 1965. An analysis of British literature concerning psychiatry in approved schools reveals the following: (1) psychiatric participation in approved schools is necessary and valuable though full exploration and evaluation of possible methods is yet to be conducted; (2) each visiting psychiatrist, at present, must still formulate his own method of approach, but not overlook the need for close work with the family of a juvenile; (3) the visiting psychiatrist should have an office of his own near the administrative center of the school; (4) clinical research, especially evaluation of group methods of treatment and the use of drugs, is needed; (5) a special hospital for the evaluation and and treatment of certain types of disturbed delinquents should be established. No address. 1771 Schmideberg, Melitta. Reality therapy with offenders. British Journal of Criminology, 5(2):168-182, 1965. The therapist's function is to socialize the offender. To do this reorientation is necessary, but the therapist must realize that the prime aim of treatment of offenders is rehabilitation. The results of realitytherapy in ten individual cases reveal that criminal psychiatry and psychotherapy are still in their infancy and much experimentation is necessary before adequate treatment techniques can be developed. No address. The success rate of offenders released from borstal care has been steadily decreasing in Great Britain. One explanation for this is that the offenders received at the borstals were of a poorer "quality" and, hence, more likely to become recidivists. The reception quality of the inmates at the borstals was examined by type of crime, by educational standard, and by Mannheim-Wilkins prediction for success-failure upon discharge. Only in the Mannheim-Wilkins predictions were the inmates found to be of a poorer quality. The explanation for the deterioration in borstal reception quality as measured by the MannheimWilkins prediction scores is to be found in the increase in homeless offenders, the increased criminality and penal sophistication of the offenders and the incidence of heavy drinking. To what extent these increases overlap, and why the predictability factors are at all related to recidivism remain to be explained. The character of the "new" criminal is delineated from that of the "old" criminal, the basic criminal type of the past. The basic personality of the majority of offenders has switched from the well-trained, resourceful, "ethical" criminal of the past, to a new, unskilled and reckless deviant type. The new criminal has a persistent pattern of deviant behavior characterized by an almost total disregard for the rights and feelings of others. While the old criminal was motivated simply by material concern, followed a specific code of behavior and could be characterized as "inner-directed," the new criminal is an "other-directed" personality and is amenable A sample of forty-four men from Melbourne's skid row population, all convicted on "drunk and disorderly" charges, were administered a 16PF and the results compared with a sample of sixty-seven inmates selected from a group of offenders convicted for a wide range of offenses. The drunk and disorderly group showed departures from norms on the same factors as did the general group, only their scores tended to be more extreme. As a group, they can be characterized as having low intelligence, low ego and super-ego strengths, and being mild, submissive, glum, silent, timid, shy, sensitive, effeminate, suspecting, jealous, bohemian, unconcerned, highly insecure and anxious, and very tense and excitable. No address. ness and even harmfulness of the penal measures as such. Of the few statistics released on the deportments, thirty-six and sixtenths percent of the survey of 600 were deported for unspecified reasons, indicating that Soviet authorities apply the law against suspected or potential criminals when there is a lack of proof needed for a conviction on specific charges. Also, the age composition of the idlers does not show a marked falling off with the approach of middle age, as it does in surveys of ordinary crimes. These laws seem to have been inspired by rapid social and economic changes and the resulting increased insecurity and suspicion towards minority groups among the population. Western observers at court proceedings of parasite trials have come away with unfavorable impressions. The increasing number of articles on parasite cases in legal journals and in the daily newspapers indicates that some reforms may be forthcoming. No address. 1779 Summit County (Ohio). Juvenile Court. Procedures involving the juvenile court of Summit County and the Akron_public schools, revised August, 1964. Akron no date, 3 p. mimeo. To strengthen the court-school relationship and to provide for greater consistency, procedures for dealing with students who are or are in danger of being in conflict with the law have been designed by the Summit county juvenile court and the Akron public schools. Procedures are listed under three headings: (1) primary responsibilities of the court; (2) primary responsibilities of the school; and (3) general policy. No address. 1780 Solkoff, Norman, & Chrisien, Gil. Frustration and perceptual-motor performance in institutionalized delinquent and non-delinquent boys. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 11(2):120-122, 1965. To investigate the relationship between frustration and perceptual-motor performance, two groups of male subjects were employed in an experiment. One group consisted of twentyfour institutionalized delinquents, and another of thirty-six neglected children who had no known history of antisocial behavior. Subjects were assigned at random to one of three conditions: a high-frustration group, a low-frustration group, and a non-frustration group. Subjects in the high-frustration group were interrupted prior to completing a marble game and thus could not win a fully visible prize. Low-frustration subjects were also interrupted at the game but no goal was specified for them. The no-frustration subjects were never exposed to the game. The digit symbol subtest of the WAIS was given to all subjects prior to the treatments and a revised form of the same test was administered immediately following frustration procedures. The results of a treatment by level analysis of variance indicated that there was a significant drop in the performance of the highfrustration in comparison to the low-frustration subjects. There were no differences between delinquents and non-delinquents in response to frustration. Norman Solkoff, Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York. While not enough is known about the precise rehabilitative services which should be offered in a halfway house for narcotic addicts, enough information is available to support the idea that a number of such facilities in the major urban areas in the United States would contribute significantly to the rehabilitation of addicts. The National Association for the Prevention of Addiction to Narcotics has begun a drive to raise funds for the establishment of six halfway houses in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. A NAPAN-run halfway house will be designed to provide direct services to released addicts and at the same time to produce some answers to the questions being asked by social workers, doctors, and social scientists regarding the true needs of a drug addict following detoxification. No address. 1782 Winslow, Walker. Synanon: an application of the reality principle. The Municipal Court Review, 4(3):18-20, 1965. Of the 860 hard line addicts to narcotics, dangerous drugs, or alcohol who have come to Synanon, fifty-five percent have stayed and remained addiction free. The basic technique of Synanon is simple in its essentials: a newcomer is not required to express a clearcut desire to get well; that the pressure of the street has become too much for him is sufficient. If addicted when admitted, he is given to understand that he must come off the habit without any chemical help. Older members help the new arrival through the ordeal of withdrawal, but there is never any sympathy toward the person as an addict and there is no gain to be made by acting out suffering. In the beginning, the new member is accepted as a not very bright child and is expected to obey orders. Synanon group meetings are the focal point of the newcomer's regimen where he is exposed to every member and drawn into participation; resentments of the day may be released without fear of reprisals, and through group discussions, he learns to deal with his emotions and the superficial facades that have protected him in the past. Deprived of his neurotic techniques he learns to relate to his fellows. Any habitual offender stands to gain from Synanon and the majority are able to take the discipline and insight they need because it is supplied by their own kind. No address. |