Kleptomania

1878

Kleptomania, which has long been recognised by the medical, is not recognised by the legal profession.

We boast of our advancement in physiology, psychology, and humanitarianism; yet when a lady of otherwise blameless life suddenly taken to pilfering mutton chops, children's boots, jewellery, or anything else upon which she can lay hands, we throw our philosophy and our humanity to the winds, we brand her as a thief, and, regardless of the fearful consequences to herself, her husband, and her children, we throw her into gaol, and utterly ruin the happiness of her and hers for life.

The doctors may be called to prove that she is nervous or excitable, that she has been very ill in time past, and has been obliged to take remedies which have more or less affected her power of control: but all is useless. The evidence is clear, she took the goods, she even secreted them. Her actions have all the appearance of deliberate fraud, and yet her whole conduct from first to last may have been due to physical disorganisation by which her power of self-control has become impaired, leaving her at the mercy of her morbid impulses.

But how can she be acquitted, while poorer women, no more or less guilty, are sent to gaol by the score: so to gaol she goes, although the more thoughtful among judges, magistrates, doctors, and jury feel the hideous cruelty of the proceeding; feel that she should be treated as a patient, and not as a criminal; and that there should be, both for her and her poorer sisters in like circumstances, a loophole of escape which does not, but which might exist, and that the infliction of a fine, or of an order of restitution, or discharge upon recognisances to come up for judgment if called upon, would be a more fitting punishment than the cruel one of imprisonment.

Such imprisonments are the more to be reprehended as they are utterly useless. The imprisonment of one kleptomanic will not deter another from pilfering, for the simple reason that in such cases the power of self-control is more or less absent. A conclusive proof of this exists in the fact that in many each cases on record, the moment the prisoner is released, keenly as she has felt her disgrace and degradation, she commences to pilfer again.

—Journal of Psychological Medicine and Medical Pathology, Winslow, Lyttleton Forbes, 1878, p. 172.