--- Title: Debate Psychiatry as Cure for Crime Description: The New York Times, 15 April 1930, p. 44. Unsigned report of the annual meeting of the National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor at the Hotel St. Regis, New York, on 14 April 1930, where Alfred Adler spoke on the prevention of crime; individual treatment of criminals and clinics; physical defects, neglect and pampering as sources of criminality; training of teachers; disagreement with Dr. Frederic J. Farnell. Author: Periodista sin firma URL: https://adler.school/archivo/adler/cronicas/original/1930-04-15%20Debate%20Psychiatry%20as%20Cure%20for%20Crime --- # DEBATE PSYCHIATRY AS CURE FOR CRIME ## Dr. Adler and Dr. Farnell in a Clash Over Physical Defects as Causative Factor. ## PREVENTIVE WORK IS URGED ### Training of Teachers to Correct Abnormalities in Pupils Stressed at Conference. More psychiatrists in schools and the training of teachers so they could correct abnormalities in their pupils were urged as means of crime prevention by four speakers yesterday at the annual meeting of the National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor at the Hotel St. Regis. The meeting developed a difference of opinion between Dr. Alfred Adler, Vienna psychologist, and Dr. Frederic J. Farnell, chairman of the Rhode Island State Public Welfare Commission, as to some of the causes of crime and the possibilities of psychiatry as a cure for them. Dr. Farnell agreed with the principal point made by Dr. Adler, that criminals should be treated individually and not as a group and that clinics should be established to care for them individually, but warned against exaggerating the possibilities of psychiatry and said that some types of criminals could not be cured by such treatment. Nowhere has there yet been an earnest, scientific attempt to classify criminals and treat them accordingly, he declared. Criminals are derived largely from children with physical defects or imperfections, children who are neglected, and those who are pampered, Dr. Adler said. In all these groups, he said, an inferiority feeling or lack of social interest is developed. One of the greatest steps in prevention of crime, he continued, would be the training of teachers in the schools so they could correct these tendencies. Dr. Farnell agreed, adding that he hoped to see the day when the school without the services of a psychiatrist would be as rare as the school without a dental clinic is today. He disagreed, however, with Dr. Adler's classification of physical defects as one of the factors in producing criminals, and with the Viennese psychologist's description of an "inborn social feeling" in all men, saying that there are only three crimes which the average man would not commit under certain circumstances. The proposal for preventive work among school children and clinical work among criminals was echoed in speeches by Dr. William J. Ellis, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies, and Dr. Walter N. Thayer, Maryland Superintendent of Prisons. The following were elected as directors of the committee: William J. Donovan, former Assistant Attorney General; Glenn Frank, president of the University of Wisconsin; Governor John Hamill of Iowa; John Grier Hibben, president of Princeton; Robert M. Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago; George MacDonald of the Big Brother and Sister Federation; former Governor Clifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania, and Professor Francis B. Sayre of Harvard Law School. Nine directors were re-elected. --- *Fuente:* "Debate Psychiatry as Cure for Crime", *The New York Times*, 15 April 1930, p. 44, unsigned. Transcribed from the article clipping in TimesMachine (1930-04-15_p44_96097597), rendered at 200 dpi; the tesseract OCR, which mixes the columns, was used only for orientation. The whole piece is legible. Another report of the same session, with different text, is the Buffalo Evening News of the same day ("Dr. Adler Opposes Severe Sentences").