Psychopathy in the Penal System: A Case of Medicalization?

• In Event: 033 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Procedures and Justice

Abstract

For over a century, psychiatrists have used the term “psychopathic” to describe criminals whose callous personality and antisocial behavior seem pathological. Concepts like psychopathy have been widely identified as prime cases of the “medicalization” of crime. But in what sense, if any, was the introduction of psychopathy into the penal system a case of medicalization? To clarify this question, I focus on a critical historical case: the establishment in 1916 of the United States’ first adult penal psychiatric clinic at Sing Sing Prison by Bernard Glueck, an eminent theorist and clinician of psychopathy. I show that even under circumstances conducive to medical domination, psychiatry was subordinated to correctional concerns and practices. Glueck used criminal behavior as a component of psychopathy and identified psychopaths by penal rather than medical criteria, while psychopathic inmates under his supervision received additional punishment rather than psychiatric treatment. Psychopathy is therefore a cautionary rather than exemplary instance of medicalization, more accurately characterized as a case of penalization through psychiatric means.

Author

• David Showalter, University of California, Berkeley