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.

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 Jessica Reichert,  Sharyn Adams, H. Douglas Otto,  Julia Sanchez 

 East St. Louis, Illinois has experienced high rates of violent crime including homicide. In 2019, the city’s homicide rate was 137 per 100,000 residents, which was considerably higher than the state rate and the Chicago rate (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2019). Victims of violent crime may have many service needs, such as behavioral health counseling, medical care, legal services, housing, and financial assistance (Aeffect, Inc., 2017). Many crime victims come to the attention of police, so a program was developed in East St. Louis to refer victims to services they need. The East St. Louis Community Engagement Response Team (ESL-CERT) was created to refer victims of crime to necessary services using a law enforcement task force (composed of dedicated Illinois State Police officers) working on violent crime cases in East St. Louis. The program is considered a “deflection” program in which law enforcement and other first responders (or co-responders) connect individuals to treatment and/or other social services thereby deflecting them from emergency services, crisis interventions, and justice involvement (Firesheets et al., 2022; Kelly et al., 2022; Lindquist-Grantz et al., 2021). The program assists crime victims, so there is no threat of potential arrest charges. This evaluation examined the ESL-CERT’s action planning process. Local stakeholders met virtually for 21 hours over seven days to develop the program’s Solution Action Plan (SAP). Action planning is a way to increase community engagement, develop clear and concise program goals, and create strategies to effectively achieve those goals (Creatly, 2021). The action planning work culminated in an action plan with objectives, strategies, and steps needed to aid in program implementation. Methodology To avoid the risk of spreading COVID-19 in 2021, the action planning process was held virtually via Zoom for three-hours per day for seven days. Representatives of several local community agencies and groups participated; 30 participated in at least one session from 23 organizations and 14 organization types. There were 30 community representatives, with attendance ranging from 12 to 19 participants per session. In addition to local participants, 26 representatives from outside of the community [Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC), Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA), and Police, Treatment, and Community Collaborative (PTACC) and subject matter experts] attended at least one session each. ICJIA researchers also provided a local crime victim data presentation on day 6. To evaluate the action planning procedure, the ICJIA research team examined a variety of data sources, including field observations, supporting documents, and participant surveys. The secretary of the ICJIA Institutional Review Board approved the proposed research as a program evaluation. Three researchers completed 21 hours of field observations of the action planning process from June 30, 2021, to August 8, 2021. All action planning sessions were conducted and recorded virtually through Zoom Video Conferencing. A total of 30 community members participated in at least one of the seven sessions. After each session, we administered a survey to action planning participants using the Zoom poll feature. The survey included questions about the action planning process, collaboration with other participants, and their intentions of post-action planning with responses on a 4-point Likert scale. Respondents totaled between seven and 20 respondents per day. Finally, we administered a second online survey using Qualtrics software. The survey included questions about participants (e.g., demographics information) and one open-ended question requesting their thoughts on the action planning process. A total of 13 participants responded. Data Analysis We analyzed field notes and supportive documents. We summarized what transpired sequentially for each of the seven days of action planning as the group built on the previous day’s work in each session. The Zoom platform poll data was exported in Excel for data analysis and the online survey was exported from Qualtrics to Excel for data analysis. We analyzed the poll and online survey data to generate descriptive statistics. Study Limitations We encountered some limitations while conducting this evaluation. First, we could only draw from what was said during the sessions. Participants’ internal thoughts and feelings could only be collected through brief, close-ended poll questions. Second, the participants changed each day because many could not attend all seven sessions leading to varying levels of participation in the action planning and polls. Third, while a number of reminders were sent to the group, only 13 participants responded to the online survey to gather participant demographics. Fourth, COVID 19 precipitated the need for virtual action planning, which had its challenges. For example, because of the large number of participants on the virtual platform, it was difficult to discern who was speaking. Finally, as Chicago-based researchers, we were relative outsiders. Without living or working in their community, it was difficult for us to ascertain group dynamics or potential interpersonal issues and understand historical and community context. Key Findings We noted a number of key findings on action planning participants, engagement, and discussions, as well as participant feedback on the action planning process. The survey, taken by 13 action planning participants, revealed most were female, White, non-Latinx, earned master’s degrees and incomes over $90,000, had over 20 years of experience in various fields such as social services and criminal justice, and were an average age of 52. A poll taken by seven participants on the last day showed five worked in East St. Louis and lived in a city outside of East St. Louis. The group members engaged in discussions to develop the violent crime victim program. Action planning discussions covered many areas, including: • Program purpose, capacity, eligibility, and name. • Community issues, partners, and awareness. • Outcome measures and strategies. • Training needs and topics. • Service provision. • Data and evaluation. During our observations of action planning, we noted that at times, likely exacerbated by the virtual format, it was a challenge to engage some action planning group members. In addition, some participants were initially confused about the action planning process and the program model. Finally, some participants had difficulty formulating measurable objectives. Overall, based on our surveys, participants were pleased with, and supportive, of the action planning process and the program. All participants reported the planned program would help victims of crime somewhat to a great extent. Also all indicated they would be likely or very likely to take an active role in implementation and that the program would be somewhat to very sustainable. However, three of seven participants noted the program had weak community engagement during the action planning process. Ultimately, the discussions culminated in an action plan document—the Solutions Action Plan— with objectives and action steps for the next phase of the program: implementation. The action plan contained four outcomes, 11 strategies, and 21 action steps. Recommendations Based on the evaluation findings, we offered recommendations for action planning. Suggestions to enhance participant understanding and encourage individual engagement on a virtual platform included providing data and background information, personalized invitations, regular introductions, a designated feedback loop, and the use of poll questions to aid in discussion. Another recommendation is to engage a more diverse pool of participants (e.g., East St. Louis residents and younger participants) and limit the number of outsiders participating in action planning. Finally, we recommend setting program goals and using a logic model to ensure all objectives are measurable. Conclusion - Overall, the action planning process resulted in a plan to implement a new deflection program to assist victims of violent crime in East St. Louis. The action plan document contained four objectives, 11 strategies, and 21 action steps. The next steps for the program after action planning, was implementation of the program in which the group would work on completing their action steps. Ultimately, this program supports goals of the Illinois Statewide Violence Prevention Plan including collaborations, pro-social programming, and comprehensive case management and clinical support for victims (Garthe et al., 2021).   

Chicago:  Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 2023. 75p.