The Organic Dimension of Crime

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Abstract
THE STUDY and treatment of individuals who display deviant and antisocial behavior is a traditional concern of psychiatry. In recents years the participation of psychiatrists in the examination and disposition of offenders has grown steadily, as illustrated by an expanding volume of popular and scientific publications on this subject and the now commonplace use of psychiatric testimony in legal processes. Current topics in the psychiatric literature on crime include diagnostic investigations of felon populations, descriptions of the dynamics of criminality, determinations of social and prognostic influences in criminal behavior, discussions of ethical and other ramifications, and elucidations of general principles in forensic psychiatry.1-8 Clinicians from other disciplines have also published studies about individuals who indulge in antisocial behavior. In many of these investigations the use of the electroencephalogram (EEG) has facilitated the recognition of relationships between behavioral and neurophysiological characteris