by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author)

When a court asks whether a defendant was too mentally ill to be responsible, whose knowledge should decide it: the judge's, the jury's, or the doctor's? A reader's guide to the 1925 book that first mapped the whole problem.

In 1925, a young Harvard scholar named Sheldon Glueck published Mental Disorder and the Criminal Law, a study of nearly seven hundred pages on how American courts handle the mentally ill accused. It appeared while the country was arguing over Leopold and Loeb, over rising murder rates, and over Chief Justice Taft's charge that criminal justice was a disgrace to civilization. Glueck asked how courts find out that a defendant is mentally ill, how the legal tests of insanity were made, what psychiatry actually says about the main mental disorders, and what becomes of defendants who are acquitted. His answer was that the law had cut the mind into separate compartments of knowing, feeling and willing, and that reform had to begin with the unity of the mind.

The book is long, technical and dense with footnotes. This Reader's Guide makes it accessible without replacing it. It explains the argument in plain language, supplies the legal and medical background a modern reader may lack, and shows where the reasoning is strong and where it is open to question.

INSIDE THIS GUIDE

• A reading plan and a chapter-by-chapter map of the original

• The pretrial-examination law of Massachusetts and what its first 113 examinations found

• How the tests of insanity were made, from Hale and the "wild beast" to M'Naghten and the American courts

• The argument that mental processes are a unity, and why it undercuts the old tests

• A table of the main mental disorders of 1925 and what each meant for criminal responsibility

• What happens to defendants acquitted by reason of insanity, and the fight over release

• Glueck's program: neutral experts, a new jury charge, a verdict of partial responsibility, and a commission to decide treatment after conviction

• A worked example that applies his 1925 jury charge to three imaginary defendants

• What has changed since 1925, from Durham to the Insanity Defense Reform Act, and the eugenics assumptions the book shared with its time

• Five common misreadings, a primer of legal terms, a glossary, an annotated reading list, an FAQ, 26 discussion questions and classroom activities

WHO IT'S FOR

Students of law, criminology, psychology, psychiatry and history; teachers and reading groups; and general readers who want to know how the insanity defense came to be the way it is.

PLEASE NOTE

This is an independent guide, not an abridgment or edition of Glueck's book. It does not reproduce the original's text and is not endorsed by the author's heirs or the original publisher. It is meant to be read alongside the original. Download the original book.

Written by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The AI-generated content is disclosed in accordance with Read-Me.Org policy.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.64.

A Read-Me.Org Modernized-Classic. Abridged and adapted with an Introduction by Graeme R. Newman and Claude . William Healy and Augusta F. Bronner authors of the original book.

Delinquents and Criminals: Their Making and Unmaking is one of the most important and surprisingly modern works in the history of criminology. First published in 1926, pioneering researchers William Healy and Augusta F. Bronner asked a question that still challenges criminal justice systems today: What actually works in preventing young offenders from becoming adult criminals?

Drawing on the lives of hundreds of juvenile offenders tracked over many years in Chicago and Boston, the authors conducted one of America's first large-scale outcome studies of delinquency. Their findings were startling. Many young offenders who passed through courts, reform schools, and correctional institutions went on to criminal careers, while others successfully rebuilt their lives. Most striking was the discovery that similar youths experienced dramatically different outcomes depending on how their communities treated them.

This modernized edition brings Healy and Bronner's landmark study to contemporary readers in clear, accessible language while preserving the authors' original arguments, evidence, and conclusions. Their analysis challenges many popular assumptions about crime. They found little evidence that criminal careers were determined by heredity, nationality, religion, poverty alone, or innate character. Instead, they emphasized the importance of family life, peer influence, community conditions, probation, supervision, and effective intervention.

A century later, the book remains remarkably relevant. Its themes anticipate modern debates about evidence-based justice, rehabilitation, juvenile detention, parole, foster care, and crime prevention. Many policies now considered innovative were already being advocated by Healy and Bronner in the 1920s.

This abridged and modernized Read-Me.Org edition includes a new introduction, explanatory notes, and discussion questions that place the work in both its historical and contemporary context.

A fascinating classic for students, scholars, criminal justice professionals, policy makers, and anyone interested in how societies create, prevent, and respond to crime. Download the Original Book here.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.74.

By Elini Manis, et al.

In this report, S.T.O.P. details how family surveillance apps transfer surveillance used for probation and parole to familial contexts, enabling abusive parents and intimate partners. Courts have even opportunistically used Life360, one family surveillance app, to enforce probation. The report calls on regulators to reign in family surveillance apps based on federal and state wiretap laws, and demands developers prioritize user safety if they refuse to pull the apps entirely.

Key Findings Include:

• Family surveillance apps like Life360 repurpose the surveillance typically used to enforce probation and parole. In fact, some courts use Life360 in lieu of apps branded as probation or parole tools.

• Family surveillance apps frequently function as stalkerware, enabling abusers to track their targets anywhere they go. These apps can enable abusive parents, intimate partner violence, and other crimes.

• Most family surveillance apps track more data than needed to serve their core functions, compounding safety risks for tracked individuals.

• Short of pulling family surveillance apps entirely, developers should implement anti-abusability measures recommended by advocates for survivors of domestic abuse.

by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude.

Can you stop crime before it starts, without fully knowing what causes it? A reader's guide to the 1936 symposium that gathered twenty-four programs trying to find out.

Preventing Crime: A Symposium, edited by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, brought together the directors of coordinated community councils, school bureaus, police prevention units, residential homes, child guidance clinics, a parent school, and boys' clubs, and asked each the same questions: what evidence shows the need for your program, how does it work, and how do you know whether it succeeds? The editors were candid from the start. Their title, they admitted in the preface, was optimistic, and a more accurate one would have been "Promising Efforts to Prevent Delinquency and Criminality." Only time and real evaluation, they wrote, could say whether these programs actually prevented anything.

The book is a portrait of what serious people believed about crime prevention in the depths of the Depression, and a case study in the gap between good intentions and good evidence. This Reader's Guide makes it accessible without replacing it. It explains what each program did, sets out the twelve principles the Gluecks drew from the contributions, and shows exactly what counted as proof of success in 1936, and how little of it would count today.

INSIDE THIS GUIDE

• A reading plan and a chapter-by-chapter map of the original, with all twenty-five contributors

• The Gluecks' opening argument: can crime be prevented without knowing its causes?

• Twelve principles distilled from the programs, from starting early to using trained personnel

• Community councils, school programs, police prevention bureaus, residential homes, clinics, and boys' clubs, program by program

• A close look at "the audit problem": what each contributor offered as evidence, and what it actually showed

• A worked example that tests one program's before-and-after numbers against six hard questions

• What has changed since 1936, including the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study's sobering results and decades of research on what works, what doesn't, and what's promising

• Five common misreadings, a primer of evaluation terms, a glossary, an annotated reading list, an FAQ, 26 discussion questions and classroom activities

WHO IT'S FOR: Students of criminology, social work, education, public policy and program evaluation; practitioners designing youth programs; teachers and reading groups; and general readers curious about where crime prevention came from and why proving it works is so hard.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an independent guide, not an abridgment or edition of the original symposium. It does not reproduce the original's text and is not endorsed by the editors', or contributors', heirs. It is meant to be read alongside the original, which is in the public domain in the United States.

Written by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The AI-generated content is disclosed in accordance with Read-Me.Org policy.

Download the original book here.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.54p.

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author)

If a man kills because he is certain his victim is plotting against him, and he knows killing is against the law, is he responsible?

In 1962, Sheldon Glueck of the Harvard Law School gave four lectures at Tulane University on one of the hardest questions in criminal law: where to draw the line between the wicked and the ill. Law and Psychiatry: Cold War or Entente Cordiale? reviews the tests of legal insanity, says what is wrong with each, proposes a new one, and argues that lawyers and psychiatrists are quarreling over too small a prize.

This Reader's Guide explains his arguments in plain language, supplies the legal background, and shows what has changed since. Inside are a lecture map, a worked example applying six tests to three imaginary defendants, common misreadings, and discussion questions.

A companion to the original, for students, teachers and curious readers. Download the original book.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.64.

By Bernard Glueck. Designed and Edited with an Introduction by Graeme R. Newman and Claude.

In 1916, psychiatrist Bernard Glueck made a case that was still radical for its time: that prisons and asylums needed trained psychiatrists on staff, not as outside consultants, but as clinicians embedded in the institution itself. Writing from the criminal department of the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C., Glueck laid out five detailed case studies that argued, one patient at a time, for a new way of understanding the criminal mind.

Inside, you'll find:

• A clinical study of psychogenic psychosis in prisoners — the theory that mental breakdown behind bars is often a meaningful reaction to arrest, trial, and confinement, not simply organic illness

• An extended case-by-case analysis of malingering, and the difficult problem of separating feigned symptoms from genuine mental illness

• A study of "litigious paranoia" — the compulsive, self-representing plaintiff who turns the courtroom into an extension of his delusion

• A landmark early psychoanalytic case history of kleptomania

Glueck went on to found the first psychiatric clinic ever established inside an American prison, at Sing Sing, and later served as a psychiatric expert in the Leopold and Loeb trial. He was also the elder brother of criminologist Sheldon Glueck — making this book a companion volume to Read-Me.Org's editions of War Criminals and Probation and Criminal Justice.

This new edition includes a substantial original introduction by Graeme R. Newman, assessing Glueck's century-old argument against the present day: what holds up in modern correctional psychiatry, what doesn't, and a hard look at whether American prisons have actually delivered on the promise Glueck was making in 1916 — including current data on the ongoing shortage of psychiatric staffing across U.S. correctional systems.

A Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint. This is a corrected and reformatted edition of the 1916 first edition (Little, Brown, and Company), prepared from a public domain source text under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. AI-assisted tools were used in the production of this edition, as disclosed on our website.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.165.

by Graeme R. Newman

In 1862, Henry Mayhew and John Binny walked into eleven of London's most notorious institutions — Newgate, Millbank, Pentonville, Brixton, the prison hulks at Woolwich, Coldbath Fields, Tothill Fields, Wandsworth, Holloway, the House of Detention at Clerkenwell, and Horsemonger Lane — and wrote down exactly what they saw: the governors, the warders, the chaplains, and the prisoners themselves, in their own words.

This edition brings that record back to life. Each chapter has been fully rewritten in modern prose while preserving every fact, every interview, and every argument the original authors made — from their case against purposeless hard labour to their unflinching accounts of the convict nursery, the condemned cell, and the boy discharged from prison with no one waiting at the gate.

A new introduction and retrospective, written for this edition, follows these institutions into the present: which ones were demolished, which became galleries, cathedrals, and post offices — and which are still open today, cited in current inspection reports for the very same overcrowding and neglect that Victorian reformers were fighting a century and a half ago.

What you'll find inside: • Eleven Victorian prisons, reconstructed room by room, cell by cell • Real testimony from governors, chaplains, and prisoners — first offenders and lifelong professionals alike • A frank, often moving record of Victorian London's poorest and most desperate • A new historical retrospective connecting each institution to its fate today

Part social history, part true crime, part uncomfortable mirror — London Prisons: A Retrospective is a door-by-door tour of a city's conscience, then and now.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.339.

by Nettly Lucas (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction)

Step into the hidden London of the 1920s—a city of fashionable hotels and crowded streets, respectable suburbs and shadowy back rooms, Scotland Yard detectives and professional criminals who made deception, burglary, fraud and blackmail their trade.

First published in 1926, London and Its Criminals is Netley Lucas’s remarkable journey through the criminal underworld of interwar London. Rather than simply recounting celebrated crimes, Lucas sets out to describe criminals themselves: how they lived, where they gathered, the methods they used, the slang they spoke, and the elaborate machinery of policing that pursued them.

The result is an extraordinary period portrait of crime and criminal justice.

Lucas takes his readers inside Scotland Yard and its Criminal Record Office, explaining the growing importance of fingerprints, criminal records and systematic detection. From there he ventures into a very different London—the world of professional burglars, pickpockets, confidence tricksters, jewel thieves, forgers, blackmailers and criminal gangs. He introduces his readers to figures he describes as the “Kings” and “Queens” of the Underworld: men and women who move between cheap public houses, prosperous suburban homes, exclusive restaurants and fashionable hotels while living secret criminal lives.

Among the book’s most striking chapters are Lucas’s accounts of “master criminals” and “crooked women.” His characters include expert burglars, ingenious forgers, sophisticated jewel thieves and accomplished confidence tricksters. Some are frightening, some ingenious, some surprisingly ordinary. Again and again Lucas emphasizes the unsettling proximity of the criminal world to respectable society.

Yet London and Its Criminals is more than a gallery of rogues. Lucas was writing at a moment when attitudes toward crime and punishment were beginning to change. He opens the book by discussing the emerging scientific study of crime, criminal psychology, rehabilitation and the limitations of imprisonment—questions that remain central to debates about criminal justice a century later.

Lucas is also an unusually provocative guide. He claims familiarity with criminals themselves and repeatedly describes conversations, meals and encounters with people operating on the wrong side of the law. His London is consequently not the London of official police reports alone. It is a city observed from its restaurants, streets, clubs, pubs, courtrooms and criminal meeting places.

Modern readers should approach some of Lucas’s language, assumptions and sweeping judgments as products of their time. That is also part of the historical importance of the book. It provides a vivid primary-source window into how crime, policing, punishment, class and the urban underworld were represented during the 1920s.

This new Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint presents Lucas’s fascinating account to a new generation of readers, accompanied by a detailed new Introduction by Graeme Newman that places the work in its historical and criminological context.

For readers interested in true crime, criminology, Scotland Yard, policing, criminal history, London history, organized crime and the social history of the 1920s, London and Its Criminals offers a fascinating journey into a vanished—but sometimes surprisingly familiar—criminal world

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.194.

By Chris Whitty,

he aim of this report is to explore the health and healthcare of people in prison and on probation in England and make recommendations to improve these. It combines insights from, and individual chapters authored by: front line professionals working in prisons and the secure estate and in probation; public health professionals; commissioners and policy makers in health and justice; third sector organisations; academics and lived experience experts. These insights were gathered by extensive evidence gathering and stakeholder engagement, albeit by a small team within a defined time frame from September 2024 to July 2025. Regional health and justice teams across prison and probation were invited to share their written experiences and attend roundtables. Additional roundtables and workshops were conducted to explore specific themes such as the health needs and healthcare challenges of people on probation, health workforce and long-term conditions. We are very grateful for the time, enthusiasm and knowledgeable response from prison, probation, NHS and public health staff. Building on previous CMO visits looking at health to the secure estate (including secure mental health hospitals) we visited a further: 15 male and female prisons; 1 young offenders’ institution, 1 secure school and 1 secure children’s home; 1 secure NHS hospital and 4 probation delivery units. These covered all regions of England. During visits we discussed with frontline clinical and operational staff as well as people in prison, prison and probation officers, governors and healthcare leaders and we are very grateful for their time and expertise. In addition to lived experience identified by chapter authors and from group discussions during visits, we worked with the NHS Health and Justice Lived Experience Network and Empowering People: Inspiring Change (EP:IC) lived experience consultancy to bring together themes from existing lived experience engagement relevant to the chapters of this report, including engagement held for the 10 Year Health Plan. This was supplemented with additional lived experience focus groups held with pregnant women currently in prison, with people on probation and recently in prison on topics including the health and care needs of older adults in prison and health improvement in prison. One person with lived experience of the criminal justice system was a member of our steering group and contributed and reviewed all chapters. Lived experience contributions are incorporated throughout chapters in blue panels, practice examples (orange) and case studies (lilac) gathered from engagement are also included to illustrate findings.The development of the report was guided by 2 groups: ■ a stakeholder steering group with representation from UK Health Security Agency, Department of Health and Social Care, HM Prison and Probation Service, Ministry of Justice, NHS England and EP:IC lived experience consultancy ■ a clinical task and finish group chaired by the Royal College of General Practitioners: Secure Environments Group. Attended by front line clinicians and clinical leaders (GPs, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, psychiatrists, midwives, obstetricians and peer support workers) working in, or with recent experience of, prisons, probation and the secure estateThe ‘children and young people’ chapter was guided by its own steering group with representation from NHS England, Youth Justice Board, Youth Custody Service and clinical advisers. The important challenges of substance misuse in prisons have been extensively explored in the recent independent review by Dame Carol Black published in 2024. For this reason we have not concentrated on this issue in this report and would point people to Dame Carol’s recommendations . Sentencing policy is obviously outside the remit of this report on health, although the implications of long and short sentences on health and healthcare is considered. Any response to the Sentencing Review by the Rt Hon David Gauke 2025 is likely to have an effect on prison and probation health and healthcare2 . While important to this population, it was outside the scope of this review to do an in depth review of social care in prisons. The ongoing independent commission into adult social care should consider the justice population.