Senescence, Senility and Crime

The relation between age and crime is significant socially. East emphasizes that most magistrates are not appointed until they have reached middle age; this preponderance of middle age and elderly judges, he feels, may be far from desirable in cases involving juvenile crime. East quotes a circular in 1936 which declared that, “apart from the obvious advantages attaching to quickness of hearing and of sight in a justice, there is the fact that as time goes on men and women justices are apt to lose the freshness of mind and sympathy and the up to date knowledge of social conditions which are of extreme importance for suc cessful work in the juvenile courts.” The particular problems of the aged or senile person who commits a crime deserve special study. Although this report cites British figures and British problems, there is ample reason to believe that the situation in the United States is in most respects parall el. The trial of aged persons by their contemporaries may be unsatisfactory, East says. Age itself is not necessarily a true measure of senescence, using that word for the normal process of growing old, or of senility, used in a sense of abnormal mental states which sometimes supervene toward the cl ose of life. Consequently special attention should be given to the manner of thought and behavior of the aged. The onset of normal old age, or senescence, is a physiologic condition rather than a pathologic state, and is therefore difficult to determine its onset. The ...
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research