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Dr. Hamblin Smith may justly be called the leading medical criminologist in England, and his pioneering work in the Birmingham courts and prisons is attracting wide attention among those concerned with prison reform. It is a matter for congratulation that a man of such distinction in his special field should be perspicacious and courageous enough to recognise the fundamental importance of psycho-analysis for his work.
This excellent volume, small though it is, gives the gist of the scientific attitude that some workers are trying to introduce into a neglected and obscure field. The author is perhaps more concerned with practical penology than with criminology proper, but he nevertheless lays due stress on the importance of diagnosis before treatment, and the greater part of the book is taken up with this aspect. After stating the problems involved, and giving a succinct account of the various theories both of the criminal and of punishment, he provides an excellent practical description of the various methods available for investigating the material, from physical examination to the modern modifications of the Binet test. Nearly half the book is taken up with very a readable and trustworthy account of psycho-analysis, and he counters with great insight the objections that have been raised to it. He proclaims himself a thorough-going adherent.
One example will be given of his insight. Instead of discussing at length the various divergences of Jung, he goes straight to the point by saying that the difference between Freud and Jung is that the former is a determinist, the latter not, so that there is no way of reconciling the two views. 'Either a man accepts the doctrine of psychical determinism, or he does not. Argument on the subject is probably quite useless.' We agree with him that this is a central difference between Jung and psycho-analysts, one from which most of the detailed divergences can be derived.