count of the author's harrowing experience and then covers the capture of the criminal and his trial. A critical account of court trials in cases of sex crimes follows with a thorough study of what is being done with the convicted criminals in the various states. The variability in legal definitions of crime in the sex field, laws, punishment, rehabilitation measures, and even conduct of trials is so great as to amount to a scandal and emphasizes the need for studies of which the present one is hopefully a competent beginning.

The authenticated facts in the area are almost unbelievable. A fifty-threeyear-old child-molester, most of whose life has been spent in jails and prisons is turned loose on parole "uncured and untreated" before the end of his sentence to commit further horrible child murders. No prosecutor or judge had even had him examined for sanity or suggested what to do with him if he were adjudged insane. This situation is not unusual.

The author does not seem to have had much knowledge or experience with homosexuality. She had had one experience with a swish salesman which had left with her a strong if somewhat erroneous impression of all homosexual men. But she does note that child molesting is not limited either to homosexuals or heterosexuals, both of which may have a criminal disposition not specifically related to their basic classification. She introduces a new concept as follows: "The minor, non-violent

sexual aberrations are

called paraphilia when practiced only

with other consenting adults, and children are not debauched or violated." (124) Thus homosexuality is recognized as not a crime in itself, although it may be associated with criminality in a specific case. And yet she speaks of homosexuality as a neurosis to be cured, (128) and lists it with offenses of a sexual and other types, such, for

example, as arson, assualt, etc. (154) Two studies made at Sing Sing, New York State's famous prison, bring out the confusion in nomenclature and the great difficulty in defining the psychopath. The author says: "The very term 'sexual psychopath' is misleading, in the opinion of many psychiatrists, because it has never been satisfactorily defined and is so vague that almost anyone who strays from the conventional path by the narrowest margin might be considered a sexual psychopath." (156) The first study was headed by Dr. David Abrahamsen of Columbia University. "The conclusion of the Abrahamsen group was that the problem of the sex offender cannot be solved by the passage of any laws or by any sudden sudden panacea whatsoever. 'It is necessary to extend mental health and psychiatric activities beyond the mental hospitals and into closer contact with the people through clinics, general hospitals and general medical practice." (162)

An episode of peculiar and intense interest was the brutal murder and dismemberment of a half-grown girl named Avril Terry by a man named Hashfield and the court trial which followed. The facts of the case came to be known with no reasonable doubt, but the defendant's lawyer, named Broadfield, used every imaginable trick and device to avoid the conviction of his client in spite of his obvious guilt. There is here an implied criticism of American court procedure in general which is of the utmost importance. This particular point has been noted by a columnist in the Los Angeles Times of June 28, 1965. He says: "Sir Hartley Shawcross, former attorney general of England . . . has been waging a campaign, so far lonely, to persuade his peers that drastic rethinking is in order if Englishmen are to succeed in controlling the rate of crime. ... Under the Anglo-Saxon code, designed for the most part centuries ago

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