4.3. Forensic Psychology
Master Psychology
________________________________________________________________
, Theme 3. In the Courtroom
Sources
Oosterhuis (2014)
Van Marle (2002)
De Ruiter et al. (2007)
De Vogel et al. (2014)
De Vries Robbé et al. (2016)
Meynen (2010)
PART 1.
Oosterhuis (2014). Treatment as punishment: Forensic psychiatry in The Netherlands (1870–2005)
Introduction
- This article provides an overview of the development of forensic psychiatry in the
Netherlands from the late 19th to the early 21st century.
- This branch of psychiatry developed later in the Netherlands, and from 1925 on it became
firmly anchored in the Dutch legal system.
The rise of forensic psychiatry (1870-1925)
- From the late 19th century, physicians who worked in Dutch asylums began to break the
isolation of their professional domain and also sought to expand it.
- The leading members of the Dutch Society of Psychiatry were liberal and positivist-minded
physicians who viewed science and social responsibility as crucial to social progress.
- They did not only see biological causes of mental disorders, but also a wide array of
harmful behaviors and socio-cultural influences.
- Psychiatrists were provided with arguments to expand their intervention domain
from mental asylums to society at large.
- Providing people with good living conditions was crucial to not let people fall ill;
e.g., proper hygiene, self-control, willpower, a sense of duty and responsibility,
moral awareness, and moderation.
- It was against this backdrop of professional expansion and social hygienic activism that
forensic psychiatry developed.
- In 1853 already, one of the founders of Dutch Society of Psychiatry, dr. Ramaer,
tried to bring psychiatry to the attention of lawyers in order to boost the
government’s interest in the care of the insane.
- But, dr. Ramaer’s effort to push the psychiatric professional domain towards
the practice of law was unsuccessful.
- The then prevailing legal views in the Netherlands offered only limited room for involving
physicians in legal matters.
, - E.g., the Code Pénal in 1811 to 1886 in France, saying that punishment must fit the
crime and degree of guilt, and ignore the past, personality and social background.
- Only those who were mentally insane were eligible for discharge from prosecution
and could be sent to forced admission, where the physician came in.
- Until the 19th century, Dutch legal practice rarely invoked medical expertise to
determine whether suspects were mentally ill.
- Forensic psychiatry developed later in the Netherlands than in France and Great Britain,
where already in the mid-1800s physicians made inroads in law and managed to keep
suspects with mental disorders from being sentenced.
- Based on newly defined syndromes (e.g., psychopathy) which were assumed to
undermine someone’s emotional life and moral conscious while leaving their
rational powers largely intact, physicians put forward that some suspects were
partly mentally disturbed even if it was not directly noticeable.
- Given their affected sense of guilt and responsibility, these offenders deserved
treatment rather than punishment.
- During 1880-1900, Dutch psychiatrists increasingly linked up immoral and criminal conduct
with mental disorders and argued for a psychiatric input in criminal law; this was due to 2
large international developments:
1. The rise of biomedical explanations of criminal behavior in general and criminal
anthropology (= evaluating humans physically but also culturally) in Italy and
France in particular.
2. The growing influence of the modern school of criminal law.
- Leading psychiatrists Winkler and Jelgersma sought to expand psychiatric
competence in criminal law:
- Only psychiatrists would have a reliable diagnostic toolkit to determine
which suspects were mentally disturbed and should be declared to be of
unsound mind.
- Also advocating for forced admission to and treatment in a mental asylum,
this contributed to societal protection and prevention of crime.
- Advocating for psychiatric diagnosis of all suspects and forced treatment of
psychopaths who had not (yet) committed a crime.
- Although Winkler and Jelgersma considered social conditions in their reflections on crime,
the emphasis was on hereditary disposition; immoral behavior would often be indicative of
degeneration.
- They also believed that born criminals had some specific anatomic features (=
Lombroso’s theory), and in 1894-1896 Winkler performed skull measurements
among 50 murder convicts, but this yielded very small differences.
- Jelgersma also believed the Lombroso approach, but he also believed that a criminal
predisposition only emerged after some bad social influences.
- They therefore argued for a middle course between the biological versus the social
explanation of crime.
- Apart from the continued effects of international criminal anthropology and the theory of
degeneration, around 1900, 2 psychological and sociological approaches of crime were
developed in the Netherlands.
- Heymans and Wiersma designed a classification system of character types based
on biographical study and the theory of temperaments, saying that there was a
structural link between criminal learnings and a limited power to control and
channel emotions, urges, and drives.
Master Psychology
________________________________________________________________
, Theme 3. In the Courtroom
Sources
Oosterhuis (2014)
Van Marle (2002)
De Ruiter et al. (2007)
De Vogel et al. (2014)
De Vries Robbé et al. (2016)
Meynen (2010)
PART 1.
Oosterhuis (2014). Treatment as punishment: Forensic psychiatry in The Netherlands (1870–2005)
Introduction
- This article provides an overview of the development of forensic psychiatry in the
Netherlands from the late 19th to the early 21st century.
- This branch of psychiatry developed later in the Netherlands, and from 1925 on it became
firmly anchored in the Dutch legal system.
The rise of forensic psychiatry (1870-1925)
- From the late 19th century, physicians who worked in Dutch asylums began to break the
isolation of their professional domain and also sought to expand it.
- The leading members of the Dutch Society of Psychiatry were liberal and positivist-minded
physicians who viewed science and social responsibility as crucial to social progress.
- They did not only see biological causes of mental disorders, but also a wide array of
harmful behaviors and socio-cultural influences.
- Psychiatrists were provided with arguments to expand their intervention domain
from mental asylums to society at large.
- Providing people with good living conditions was crucial to not let people fall ill;
e.g., proper hygiene, self-control, willpower, a sense of duty and responsibility,
moral awareness, and moderation.
- It was against this backdrop of professional expansion and social hygienic activism that
forensic psychiatry developed.
- In 1853 already, one of the founders of Dutch Society of Psychiatry, dr. Ramaer,
tried to bring psychiatry to the attention of lawyers in order to boost the
government’s interest in the care of the insane.
- But, dr. Ramaer’s effort to push the psychiatric professional domain towards
the practice of law was unsuccessful.
- The then prevailing legal views in the Netherlands offered only limited room for involving
physicians in legal matters.
, - E.g., the Code Pénal in 1811 to 1886 in France, saying that punishment must fit the
crime and degree of guilt, and ignore the past, personality and social background.
- Only those who were mentally insane were eligible for discharge from prosecution
and could be sent to forced admission, where the physician came in.
- Until the 19th century, Dutch legal practice rarely invoked medical expertise to
determine whether suspects were mentally ill.
- Forensic psychiatry developed later in the Netherlands than in France and Great Britain,
where already in the mid-1800s physicians made inroads in law and managed to keep
suspects with mental disorders from being sentenced.
- Based on newly defined syndromes (e.g., psychopathy) which were assumed to
undermine someone’s emotional life and moral conscious while leaving their
rational powers largely intact, physicians put forward that some suspects were
partly mentally disturbed even if it was not directly noticeable.
- Given their affected sense of guilt and responsibility, these offenders deserved
treatment rather than punishment.
- During 1880-1900, Dutch psychiatrists increasingly linked up immoral and criminal conduct
with mental disorders and argued for a psychiatric input in criminal law; this was due to 2
large international developments:
1. The rise of biomedical explanations of criminal behavior in general and criminal
anthropology (= evaluating humans physically but also culturally) in Italy and
France in particular.
2. The growing influence of the modern school of criminal law.
- Leading psychiatrists Winkler and Jelgersma sought to expand psychiatric
competence in criminal law:
- Only psychiatrists would have a reliable diagnostic toolkit to determine
which suspects were mentally disturbed and should be declared to be of
unsound mind.
- Also advocating for forced admission to and treatment in a mental asylum,
this contributed to societal protection and prevention of crime.
- Advocating for psychiatric diagnosis of all suspects and forced treatment of
psychopaths who had not (yet) committed a crime.
- Although Winkler and Jelgersma considered social conditions in their reflections on crime,
the emphasis was on hereditary disposition; immoral behavior would often be indicative of
degeneration.
- They also believed that born criminals had some specific anatomic features (=
Lombroso’s theory), and in 1894-1896 Winkler performed skull measurements
among 50 murder convicts, but this yielded very small differences.
- Jelgersma also believed the Lombroso approach, but he also believed that a criminal
predisposition only emerged after some bad social influences.
- They therefore argued for a middle course between the biological versus the social
explanation of crime.
- Apart from the continued effects of international criminal anthropology and the theory of
degeneration, around 1900, 2 psychological and sociological approaches of crime were
developed in the Netherlands.
- Heymans and Wiersma designed a classification system of character types based
on biographical study and the theory of temperaments, saying that there was a
structural link between criminal learnings and a limited power to control and
channel emotions, urges, and drives.
