CRIME AND PSYCHIATRIC EVIDENCE
Sett,—A year or two ago there was some discussion in your columns on the question of extremely severe sentences in cases of homosexual crime. Just recently, a case has occurred in which a man was sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude for this offence. It appears probable that the evidence of an expert psychiatrist is essential, in order to estimate the degree of guilt in such offences—how far deliberate wrong- doing is responsible and how far the impulse is the outcome of a mal- adjusted mind.
One feels dubious as to whether psychiatric evidence is yet being fully utilised in instances of this kind. The question of treatment, too, is so important. Are the possibilities of psychological treatment (with or without imprisonment) fully considered in all these cases? Such treatment may be curative, whereas we know long terms of penal servitude may be the prelude to a life of crime.—I am, yours &c.. (REV.) L. C. ROWAN-ROBINSON, M.B. The Vicarage, Woodborough, nr. Nottingham.
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