Description |
1 online resource (ix, 182 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, portraits |
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data file rda |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Contents |
Introduction -- Defining criminal insanity in the nineteenth century -- Specialist provision for the criminally insane -- The first female patients -- The first male patients -- Assaults on medical superintendents -- Idiots and imbeciles -- Mentally week habitual criminals -- Poverty, infirmity and illegitimacy -- Children who kill -- Infanticide -- Parricide -- Provocation -- Criminal lunatics in district asylums -- Insane but hanged. |
Summary |
Following an assassination attempt on George III in 1800, new legislation significantly altered the way the criminally insane were treated by the judicial system in Britain. This book explores these changes and explains the rationale for purpose-built criminal lunatic asylums in the Victorian era. Specific case studies are used to illustrate and describe some of the earliest patients at Broadmoor Hospital - the Criminal Lunatic Asylum for England and Wales and the Criminal Lunatic Department at Perth Prison in Scotland. Chapters examine the mental and social problems that led to crime alongside individuals considered to be weak-minded, imbeciles or idiots. Family murders are explored as well as individuals who killed for gain. An examination of psychiatric evidence is provided to illustrate how often an insanity defence was used in court and the outcome if the judge and jury did not believe these claims. |
Note |
Print version record. |
Subject |
Mentally ill offenders -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.
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Dangerously mentally ill -- Institutional care -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.
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Criminal justice, Administration of -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.
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Insanity Defense -- history.
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Commitment of Mentally Ill -- history.
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Mentally Ill Persons -- legislation & jurisprudence.
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Hospitals, Psychiatric -- history.
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Forensic Psychiatry -- history.
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History, 19th Century.
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United Kingdom.
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Criminal justice, Administration of. (OCoLC)fst00883246
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Mentally ill offenders. (OCoLC)fst01016814
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Great Britain. (OCoLC)fst01204623
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Genre/Form |
Case Reports. https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D002363
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History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
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Added Author |
Burt, John R. F., author.
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Spine Title |
Madness, murder and mayhem |
Added Title |
Criminal insanity in Victorian and Edwardian Britain |
Other Form: |
Print version: Burtinshaw, Kathryn M. Murder, madness and mayhem. Barnsley, South Yorkshire : Pen & Sword History, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2018 9781526734556 (OCoLC)1041526264 |
ISBN |
9781526734563 (electronic book) |
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1526734567 (electronic book) |
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