Criminal lunatic asylums were adopted in England as early as 1786. In 1815 Bethlehem Hospital was appropriated to criminal lunatics, and the Broadmoor Asylum was founded in 1863. Similar asylums exist at Dundrum in Ireland (1850), at Perth in Scotland (1858), at New York (1874), and in Canada (1877).
On the continent of Europe there is not to this day a regular asylum for mad criminals, though France, <p 231>after an experiment in treating condemned madmen at Bic<e^>tre, opened a separate wing for them in the prison at Gaillon. Holland has assigned to them the hospital of Bosmalen (Brabant); Germany has special wards in the establishments at Waldheim, Bruchsaal, Halle, and Hamburg; and Italy, after founding a special ward in 1876, at the establishment for relapsed prisoners at Aversa, has converted the Ambrogiana establishment at Montelupo in Tuscany, into an asylum for insane convicts, and for prisoners under observation as being of unsound mind. The new Italian penal code, though not openly recognising the foundation of asylums for criminals acquitted on the ground of insanity, has, in its general spirit of eclecticism, given judges the power of handing them over to the competent authority when it would be dangerous to release them (Art. 46). At the Montelupo Asylum criminals acquitted on the ground of insanity are also detained, at first under observation, then by a definite order from the president of the Tribunal, who can revoke his order on the petition of the family, or of the authorities.
The inquiry into existing legislation on insane criminals, undertaken by the ``Soci<e'>t<e'> G<e'>n<e'>rale des prisons de Paris,'' showed that in France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Croatia, Belgium, Portugal, and Sweden, the authors of crimes or offences who are acquitted on the ground of insanity are withdrawn from all control by the judicial authority, and entrusted to the more or less regular and effectual control of the administrative authority. In England, <p 232>Holland, Denmark, Spain, and Russia, on the contrary, the judicial authority is empowered and even compelled to order the seclusion of these individuals in an ordinary or a criminal lunatic asylum.
Of the objections raised against this form of social defence against insane criminals, I pass over that of the cost, which is considerable; for even from the financial point of view I believe that the actual system, which gives no guarantee of security against madmen with criminal tendencies, is more costly to the administration, if only by reason of the damage which they cause. I also pass over the other objection, based on the violent scenes which are said to be inseparable from the association of such prisoners; for experience has shown that forebodings are ill founded in regard to criminal asylums where the inmates are classified according to their tendencies, under the direction of a staff with special knowledge, who are able to prevent such outbreaks. In ordinary asylums, on the other hand, a few insane criminals are sufficient to render the maintenance of order very difficult, and their inevitable and frequent outbreaks have dire effects on the other patients.
The most serious and repeated difficulties in regard to lunatic asylums spring from the very principles of the defensive function of society.
It is said in the first place that the author of a dangerous action is either a madman or else a criminal. If he is a madman, he has nothing to do with penal justice—so Fabret, Mendel, and others have said; his action is not a crime, for he had no <p 233>control over himself, and he ought to go to an ordinary asylum, special measures being taken for him, as for every other dangerous madman. Or else he is a criminal, and then he has nothing to do with a lunatic asylum, and he ought to go to prison.
But there is a fallacy in this dilemma, for it leaves out the intermediate cases and types, where particular individuals are at the same time mad and criminal. And even if it were a question of madmen only, the logical consequence would not be to bar out special asylums, for it seems clear that if ordinary madmen (not criminals, that is, not the authors of dangerous actions) ought to go to an ordinary asylum, criminal madmen, or madmen with a tendency to commit dangerous or criminal actions, as well as those who have committed them, ought to go to a special asylum for this category of madmen. For, on the other hand, we constantly see that administrative authorities which observe the same rules for the seclusion of ordinary and criminal madmen do not prevent the release of the latter, some time after the crime, when the disturbance of mind and even the recollection of the deed are all but effaced; and criminal madmen commit other violent or outrageous excesses, very soon after they are left exposed to their diseased tendencies.[21]
[21] M. Lunier, writing in 1881 of epileptics, and the method of treatment and aid appropriate to them, says that of 33,000 known epileptics in France, 5,200 only are in private or public asylums, whilst 28,000 remain with their families. From these figures it would appear very probable that these 28,000 epileptics left at liberty commit crimes and offences.
It may be answered that it is sufficient to have <p 234>special wings in ordinary asylums, which would also get over the repugnance of families against the association of their quiet and harmless patients with murderous and outrageous madmen. But experience has already proved that these special wards do not work well, for it is too difficult with the same staff to apply such varied treatment and discipline as are necessary for ordinary and criminal lunatics.
Fabret says that ``a so-called criminal, when he is seen to be mad, should cease to be regarded as a criminal, and ought purely and simply to resume his ordinary rights.''