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Dr. Samuel Dunaif has been appointed to carry out a joint psychiatric research project at Sing Sing Prison for the State Departments of Mental Hygiene and Correction, by Commissioner of Mental Hygiene Paul H. Hoch, M.D. and Correction Commissioner Thomas J. McHugh. He assumed his new position as principal research scientist on January 17.
Serving on a part-time basis, Dr. Dunaif will set up a pilot study to delineate, wherever possible, the areas of research concerning the psychiatry of various types of offenses, the Commissioners reported.
Some of the areas Dr. Dunaif will explore include the problem of recidivism (relapse into prior criminal habits) and how recidivists differ from non-recidivists, whether recidivism can be predicted on the basis of an elaborate personality inventory of the kind used for the more narrowly defined study of sex offenders, whether the newer drug therapies will be of any value in control of recidivism and whether the symptom-producing drugs have a different reaction in various types of offenders, particularly in those who commit offenses against the person as compared with those committing offenses against property. He also will follow cases already treated with shock therapy and attempt to measure the relationship between length of sentence and subsequent recurrence of the offense.
Dr. Dunaif is in private practice and is an instructor in psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He served as a resident research psychiatrist for two years and as a consultant research psychiatrist for one year on a previous study on convicted sex offenders at Sing Sing.
Dr. Marc H. Hollender, professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry of the State University College of Medicine at Syracuse has been appointed director of Syracuse Psychopathic Hospital, it has been announced by Dr. Paul H. Hoch, Commissioner of Mental Hygiene. Dr. H