The Sexual Psychopath Laws

Professor Sutherland is well known as the author of "Principles of Criminology," "Twenty Thousand Homeless Men," "White Collar Crime," and of chapters in "Recent Social Trends" and of numerous other important studies.He is a member of the Advisory Editorial Council of this JouRN..-EDITop.In recent years several states have made an effort to protect the public from "sexual psychopaths" ("persons with criminal propensities to the commission of sex offenses") by authorizing their commitment to mental institutions."Implicit in these laws is an ideology which has been made explicit in an extensive popular literature. 2 This ideology contains the following propositions:1. Women and children are in great danger in American society because serious sex crimes are very prevalent and are increasing more rapidly than any other type of crime.J. Edgar Hoover wrote, "The most rapidly increasing type of crime is that perpetrated by degenerate sex offenders ....(It) is taking its toll at the rate of a criminal assault every 43 minutes, day and night, in the United States."2. Practically all of these serious sex crimes are committed by "degenerates," "sex fiends," or "sexual psychopaths."Wittels wrote, "Most of the so-called sex killers are psychopathic personalities ....No one knows or can even closely estimate how many such creatures there are, but at least tens of thousands of them are loose in the country today."*Acknowledgment is made to the following persons for information as to the origin and operation of sexual psychopath laws: