Criminal Acts Among Schizophrenics in French Mental Hospitals

Veterans Administration Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California. Send reprint requests to Dr. Yesavage, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305. This paper reports a questionaire study of 116 schizophrenic subjects. A group without history of crime (N = 53) was found to have considerably better relations with their families than a group with histories of criminal acts (N = 63). An interesting finding was that negative relations with the father were reported more frequently in the noncriminal group than in the criminal group, whereas negative relations with the mother were more frequent in the criminal group than in the noncriminal group. Within the criminal group several differences were found between the criminal behavior of chronic undifferentiated and paranoid schizophrenics. Although subjects of both diagnoses often acted with premeditation, paranoid schizophrenics were more likely to commit crimes against persons, to be under the influence of their illness during the crime, to be secretive about plans, to admit their guilt, and to cite vengeance as a motive than chronic undifferentiated schizophrenic subjects.