The Crime of Punishment [Paperback]

M.D. Karl Menninger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2007

The Crime of Punishment, originally published in 1966, addressed the critical issue of crime in America and how we punish criminals. Was the spread of violence in spite of our laws and courts or because of them and us? Dr. Menninger dissected the criminal justice system and concluded, "I suspect that all the crimes committed by all the jailed criminals do not equal in total social damage that of the crimes committed against them". Dr. Menninger, the esteemed psychiatrist, former chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, and former senior consultant to the Stone-Brandel Center in Chicago, gave us a thoughtful manual 40 years ago that is highly relevant and seriously applicable to the criminal justice system today. Hopefully, by republishing this valuable lesson book, we will apply his teachings and correct the system of corrections. New Leaf - New Life, Inc./Citizens for Effective Justice, which was instrumental in the republishing of this book, is a criminal justice reformation advocacy organization dedicated to transformational change. Visit www.citizensforeffectivejustice.org to learn about efforts across the country to implement Dr. Menninger's ideas for a more effective criminal justice system. This book is being republished with the permission of the Kansas Historical Society, curator of Dr. Menninger's archives.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Karl Augustus Menninger (July 22, 1893 - July 18, 1990) was an American psychiatrist and a member of the famous Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. Karl Menninger was born in Topeka, Kansas. He attended Washburn University, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was accepted to Harvard Medical School, where he graduated cum laude in 1917. He held an internship in Kansas City, worked at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, and taught at Harvard Medical School before finally returning to Topeka in 1919. Together with his father, Charles Frederick Menninger, he founded the Menninger Clinic. By 1925, he had attracted enough investors to build the Menninger Sanitarium. The Menninger Foundation was established in 1941 and quickly became a U.S. psychiatric and psychoanalytic center. After World War II, Menninger was instrumental in founding the Winter Veterans Administration Hospital, in Topeka. It became the largest psychiatric training center in the world. During his career, Menninger wrote a number of influential books. In his first book, The Human Mind, Menninger argued that psychiatry was a science; and that the mentally ill were only slightly different than healthy individuals. In The Crime of Punishment, Menninger argued that crime was preventable through psychiatric treatment; punishment was a brutal and inefficient relic of the past. He advocated treating offenders like the mentally ill. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Jimmy Carter in 1981. Source Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Menninger

Product Details

• Paperback: 404 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (October 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1434327965
• ISBN-13: 978-1434327963
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,620,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Punishment is a crime. It does not work., March 8, 2008

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Vidvuds Beldavs "Vid Beldavs" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Crime of Punishment (Paperback)

In the 1960's Dr. Karl Menninger wrote his landmark book The Crime of Punishment reflecting his extensive experience as a practitioner in the courts as well as prisons and jails dealing with the interface between psychiatry and the criminal justice system. The widely read book went through at least 12 printings and a copy was donated to every judge in the country through the gift of a benefactor. This is a book that should be read by everyone who is working in or aspires to a career in criminal justice. This book has been republished by NewLeaf-NewLife, Inc., a not for profit organization whose mission is to reduce recidivism and increase the number of men and women who successfully return from jail to productive roles in their communities.
In the decades that followed the publication of The Crime of Punishment criminal justice policy took a 180 degree shift from policies recommended by Menninger. Until the 1970's about 100 per 100,000 were incarcerated loosely tracking a historical average since the Civil War. Dr. Menninger was concerned about this high rate of incarceration. There was a slight increase during the Great Depression in response to the deep poverty in the country. Now, in 2008 more than 1 adult out of a 100 is imprisoned. with no clear sign of reversal. Without major change in policy further significant increases in incarceration rates can be expected driven by new forces including the War on Terrorism, the absence of effective reentry programs in most states and communities and a continuation of punitive policies that don't work.
The politics-as-usual response of putting more people behind bars for ever more reasons has only aggravated manageable problems into a crisis that now poses a grave threat to the survival of our country as a democracy. In many states more taxpayer resources are spent on incarceration than on a vastly larger population seeking higher education. People in the prison system consume more public resources in a "system" that makes them less able to be productive citizens than it would take to send them to Harvard. Why are we spending so much to create negative human capital? Imagine a natural disaster like Katrina, or a recession or possibly a depression with vastly increased poverty with the taxpayers carrying the fixed burden of perhaps 1,000 or more per 100,000 of Americans behind bars. What would happen to these millions crippled by our criminal justice "system" who are unable to find work even in the present good times? What would happen to our communities to which these people return hardened by their prison experience? Over 96% of those in prison or jail return to their communities. Criminal justice policies bent on punishment and not rehabilitation have created a time bomb.
Instead of taking measures to correct the flaws identified by Menninger in The Crime of Punishment, state and national leaders responded to populist calls to get tough on crime. They have created a monster that not only threatens our competitiveness but which also poses a security threat. We have concentrated a vast army of troubled people together with hardened criminals and potential terrorists. We are beginning to see the emerging threat of terrorist gangs taught in our prisons paid for by our taxpayers at a cost per annum equal to a Harvard education. We have also created an extreme racial imbalance in our "systems" of incarceration with an incarceration rate of over 12,000 per 100,000 for black men 25-29. On the eve of the Russian Revolution Lenin spoke of Russia as a "nation of prisons and prison of nations." Many more are incarcerated in America today than were incarcerated in Russia at the time of Lenin before the Russian Revolution. The greatest threat to our nation may lie within, in our own prisons.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reconsidering The Crime of Punishment, April 10, 2010

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Joseph G. Langen "Joe Langen" (Leroy) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Crime of Punishment (Paperback)

~The danger is that, instead of understanding, we only seek to quell~
Karl Menninger

Should we lock up criminals so they can't offend again? Should we penalize them so they learn from their mistakes? Should we punish them to make up for what they did to others? Carl Menninger considered these and other questions when he took stock of the criminal justice system, psychiatry and our national response to crime and criminals in 1966.

His book, The Crime of Punishment, was recently republished. Has anything changed since 1966? In some ways, yes. Prisons have been modernized. Alternatives to incarceration have appeared. Specialized courts seek to understand the needs of the chemically addicted, the mentally ill and veterans among others. But do we know any more about crime and criminals than we did in the nineteen sixties?

Despite his exhaustive treatment of the topic, Menninger admitted that he was not capable of saying what motivated criminal acts and doubted whether anyone else could either. When asked, the best criminals can manage is, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

If we don't know what motivates crime, how can we prevent or minimize it? A good question but one which does not trouble most of us. As a society, we think more about the deeds than those who commit them. We quickly turn our thoughts to the best punishment for each crime.

But what does punishment accomplish? We hope to deter future crime by the threat of punishment. We hope convicts will mend their ways. We hope victims will feel vindicated. Unfortunately none of these seems to happen as a result of the noble efforts of our criminal justice system on our behalf.

If punishment does not work, what does? Maybe we need to return to where crime begins, in the human mind. What happens in the minds of criminals remains largely a mystery, even to themselves. We do have some hints though.

We know that many criminals feel powerless, hopeless and frustrated. They have very little sense of personal value. Crime, particularly the violent type, gives criminals at least a fleeting sense of power and control in their lives. For a few minutes they feel competent. Long term consequences don't enter the picture since the future is usually bleak for them anyway.

I don't suggest that we excuse criminals' actions due to their shortcomings or release them from responsibility for their actions. But crushing their spirit only increases their tendency toward continued violence. Killing them only makes us a more violent society.

We love to hate those who get caught committing crimes. We see it a little differently if we know the person involved, or if by some chance it is us. We make allowances for their life situation or difficulties. Specialized courts for certain populations have lowered recidivism rates considerably among these groups. Perhaps understanding the circumstances of other criminals can reduce our overall crime rate.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Didn't wear well, May 24, 2006

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Elizabeth A. Root (Laurel, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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I think that this is a classic example of the problems with alternative punishments. Not that I wouldn't like to see vast improvements in how we handle prisoners, but this is a prize example of the arrogance of untested theory. With the vague half-vast planning that attends so many vast ideas, Menninger pompously assured us that "men of science" would solve all our problems. The statistics that I have read don't bear this out. Psychologist are USUALLY wrong in predicting whether or not a released prisoner will later become violent. (For books dealing with this topic see: House of Cards by Robyn M. Dawes; Mad, the Bad, and the Innocent, The: The Criminal Mind on Trial - Tales of a Forensic Psychologist Barbara R. Kirwin; and Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape of American Justice by Margaret A. Hagen .)

It almost seemed a little cruel reading this book. Menninger praises indeterminate sentencing at our Patuxent Institute here in Maryland as the shining light beckoning to the future proper criminal justice. Crime was a social sickness, and should be handled by doctors, who would know when people could be released. In the mid-70s, the same people who had mouthed these sentiments were denouncing Patuxent as cruel, indeterminate sentences as monstrous. I may not have the figures for the prize case absolutely correct, but in the ballpark, a man had spent 19 years in Patuxent for an auto theft; he would have served about 18 months in prison.

Apparently, the good doctors are competent to release someone, but not to hold them. The aforementioned man, after all, wasn't supposed to be undergoing punishment but treatment. Supposedly, he was suffering from a disease as real as any physical ailment and his anti-social behavior arose from a real inability to control his own behavior. Stealing the car was merely a symptom of this illness, not evidence of its severity. If we are supposed to believe that psychprofessionals can tell us that it is safe to release someone, they should be able to tell us when it is not, and we should therefore believe that the above-mentioned prisoner was not yet fit to be released and presumably would have committed more crimes and been re-arrested.

But, indeterminant sentencing was modifed so that no-one could be held at Patuxent longer then they would have been held in prison, so the Institute began to specialize in particularly grim crimes, usually exceptionally ghastly murders. Concerns about the goal of returning these people to society caused an embattled administrator to complain because people wanted Patuxent to deal with people guilt of lesser crimes (like car theft?). She complained that such were often more difficult to treat than the extremely violent. So there we have it - if treating people as mentally ill has no better result than treating them as willfully irresponsible, shouldn't we simply go for the cheaper system? Or are we simply to accept criminal behavior as the just punishment of us as a society for failing to meet to social needs, effectively abolishing the idea of crime and take no coercive steps to control it? Are we really sure that we have only to choose to take better care of our citizens to ensure that no-one will be traumatized into antisocial behavior? In all situations, I believe that it is a given that we could do better, indeed standards of what constitute an adequate job are always changing, but will it really eliminate all our problems?

The problem is that people cannot seem to make up their minds whether most people should be held accountable for their actions or not. The present system assumes that in most cases they can, and that punishment is intended to make them decide that the possibilities of the crime aren't worth the risk of prison. "Crime as a disease" assume that they cannot be held accountable, but most people still want to retain legal structures and protections intended for the former case - a real dog's dinner of a system.

Maybe one day, crime can really be handled in a rational way, based upon meaningful research. For now, it seems to remain a clash of egos and insufficiently supported philosophies.