During the course of a recent analysis of one year's male admissions to Rampton Hospital, and of male referrals to the psychology department, attempts were made to distinguish various offence patterns by means of psychological laboratory techniques. The results were largely disappointing, owing mainly to the great amount of overlap in the numerous crimes committed by the same patients. However, using a galvanic skin response (G.S.R.) conditioning procedure similar to that described by Tong (1958), it was noted that those patients who had committed arson revealed a normal distribution of conditioned responses (see Table I), whereas every other offence pattern was positively skewed towards the low condition-ability end of the dimension (Esher, Orme, McKerracher, 1965). This suggested that further differentiation might be possible, and a full analysis was made of a number of case history factors in those patients who had, amongst other crimes, been charged with and found guilty of, committing arson. Comparison was made with the remaining patients, guilty of other crimes but not of arson.
Rampton is a Special Hospital catering mainly for subnormal and psychopathic patients with histories of dangerous and violent behaviour. Earlier work (McKerracher, Street, Segal, 1966) had shown that female patients were significantly more prone than males to mutilate their own bodies and smash hospital property. Such acts are usually regarded in this hospital as hysterical outbursts in which there is often an insensitivity to pain. Gross lacerations are often inflicted without the patient appearing to experience any suffering. Some kind of hysterical anaesthesia may be involved. It is known that this kind of behaviour is found in long-term patients suffering from (a) schizophrenia and (b) severe character disorder (Offer and Barglow, 1960).
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