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"Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, at least 35 people with mental retardation were executed in the US. Experts believe there may be 200 - 300. Because of mental retardation they do not understand what they did wrong or comprehend the punishment that awaits them. They have the mental function of a child." Human Rights Watch
Creating Mental Illness -- Allan V. Horwitz argues that our conceptions of mental illness as a disease fit only a small number of serious psychological conditions and that most conditions currently regarded as mental illness are cultural constructions, normal reactions to stressful social circumstances, or forms of deviant behavior.
The Criminal Personality: The Change Process
by
Samuel Yochelson, Stanton E. Samenow
This book describes an intensive
therapeutic approach designed to
change the criminals way of thinking.
The authors reject traditional treatment
approaches as reinforcing of the
criminals sense of being a victim
of society. Rather Yochelson and
Samenow stress that the criminal
must make a choice to give up criminal
thinking and learn morality. A Jason
Aronson Book .
Psychology and Crime (Routledge Modular Psychology) by David Putwain, Aidan Sammons Psychology and Crime includes classic and contemporary psychological theory and research on criminological issues including the nature, measurement and causes of crime, police work and offender profiling, eyewitness memory, trial procedures, jury decision making and the treatment of crime.
The Role of Mental Illness in Criminal Trials : Insanity & Mental Incompetence: Volume One by Jane Campbell Moriarty--Mental competence plays a central role in proving guilt and the severity of its punishment.
The Contours of Psychiatric Justice: A Postmodern Critique of Mental Illness, Criminal Insanity, and the Law (Current Issues in Criminal Justice) -- A Postmodern Critique of Mental Illness, Criminal Insanity, and the Law (Current Issues in Criminal Justice)
Automatism,
Insanity, and the Psychology
of Criminal Responsibility:
A Philosophical Inquiry by
Robert F. Schopp -- The
role that psychological impairment
should play in criminal liability.
Criminal guilt in the Anglo-American
legal tradition requires the
defendant committed some proscribed
act with intent, knowledge,
or recklessness.
This addresses
the insanity defenses by functional impairments of candidates
to understand the psychological
states and processes of criminal responsibility
that is morally defensible and consistent
with research in psychopathology.
The
Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets
and Remembers by Daniel L. Schacter --
When we focus our attention on one aspect
of our surroundings, we draw attention away
from others: If you were watching a circle
of people passing a basketball and someone
dressed in a gorilla costume walked through
the circle, beat his chest, and exited, you
would notice him immediately. Researchers
filmed such a scene and showed it to people
asked to track the movement of the ball by
counting the passes made by one team. About
half the participants failed to notice the
gorilla.
Psychiatric Aspects of Justification, Excuse and Mitigation in Anglo-American Criminal Law by Alec Buchanan -- Violent crimes committed by the mentally disordered raise issues of moral responsibility and public protection. This study analyses legal and medical devices which enable the courts to make special arrangements for the mentally disordered. The way courts interpret responsibility and choice influence outcome. For mentally disordered offenders the psychological and psychiatric aspects of justification, excuse and mitigation come into play.
The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara G. Forden -- Did Patrizia Reggiani murder her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, in 1995 because her ex was preparing to marry his mistress, Paola Franchi? Or is there a possibility she didn't do it at all? This account of the ascent, collapse and resurrection of the Gucci dynasty, the greatest fashion family of our times.
Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation by Julie Salamon -- In the morning of Feb. 21, 1978 -- Bob Rowe, a Mill Basin, NY, an out-of-work Brooklyn lawyer, stood by the bed watching his teenage son sound asleep, lifted a baseball bat and smashed his son's head. Jennifer, 8, was worried her brother was sleeping so late, her father coaxed her into bed with her 12-year-old brother, Christopher. ''We're going to play a game,'' Rowe told them. ''Close your eyes.'' With swift blows, he used the bat to kill them both. Rowe called his wife, Mary, at work, urging her to hurry home. When she arrived, he told her: ''Stand in the middle of the room with your eyes closed. The children have a surprise for you.'' Rowe killed his wife with a bat. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and after several years in a mental institution was released. He later remarried and had another daughter.
Human Natures: Genes, Cultures and the Human Prospect by Paul R. Ehrlich -- What makes us act the way we do? Biologist Paul R. Ehrlich suggests that human nature is as much the result of genetic coding as cultural and environmental factors. .