The purpose of the book is to present comprehensively, and to a wide audience the modern trends in the psychiatric aspects of crime. Professor Nolan D. C. Lewis has written a foreword introducing and recommending the author.

Included among the points that Dr. Abrahamsen dwells upon are the problem of heredity and environment as causes of crime, the examination and the psychology of the offender, the psychological background of murder, and the questions which criminal law puts to the psychiatrist. He gives a historical review of the understanding and treatment of the criminal. His own interpretations,