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Criminality and Its Treatment: The Patuxent Experience

NCJ Number
118497
Author(s)
F L Carney
Date Published
1989
Length
159 pages
Annotation
This text uses the author's clinical experience in the Patuxent Institution in Maryland as the basis for an exploration of the dynamics of criminality and their implications for treatment and psychotherapy, with emphasis on treatment in prisons.
Abstract
The discussion rests on the view that the deprivation of liberty is the punishment and that added punishments within the prison are unnecessary and potentially harmful. The analysis also notes that psychotherapy need not necessarily be the treatment of choice and that the dynamics of criminality suggest that milieu and supportive therapies and directive counseling may often be more effective. The analysis emphasizes the severe personality disorders that pose particular challenges to treatment personnel. An introduction describes the history of the Patuxent Institution, which was intended as a combination of both a prison and a mental hospital. Its experience over the last 30 years has taught that criminals vary considerably, some requiring major treatment, others requiring no treatment, some being apparently incurable, and some becoming noncriminal regardless of what treatment is provided. The analysis focuses on the determinants of criminality, the symptoms and diagnosis of psychopathy, the relationship of psychotherapy to imprisonment, and the psychopathology of ordinary prison life. It also focuses on the relationship between criminality and the additions and the dynamics and treatment of sexual molesters of children. The relationship between punishment and treatment is also examined. 247 references.