Abstract
This article seeks to summarize certain basic conclusions reached during a 30-year attempt to apply psychoanalytic psychology to crime, punishment, and the criminal law. Psychoanalytically derived discoveries about man's instinctual aggressiveness, and innate ways of trying to control it, are presented first. Then the conclusion is advanced that a main function of law is to help to remedy man's inability to control his aggression sufficiently so as to make life in civilized societies possible. An extended historical discussion of the development of the common law and the criminal law follows, leading to the conclusion that the criminal law seeks both to block and to express man's aggressive urgencies. Then, in a psychoanalytically oriented section devoted to criminals and criminality, the conclusion is emphasized that the criminal law's ultimate purpose has been not so much to counter successfully the threats posed by those who break the law, but rather to meet the emotional needs of the law-abiding members of society.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.