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West & Farrington began to study the criminal careers of 400 Camberwell boys in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development.

The Scientific Group for the Discussion of Delinquency became the British Society of Criminology. In its early years the British Society of Criminology looked to psychiatrists to play a prominent part in its affairs, but this slowly changed as criminologists… Continue reading →

The world’s first Institute of Criminology was opened in Cambridge University, having been founded by Sir Leon Radzinowicz.

Mental Health Act implemented the recommendations of the 1957 Royal Commission including hospital orders for mentally disordered offenders to be transferred from prisons to hospitals.

The Homicide Act limited the death penalty to murders of policeman or by firearms and introduced a verdict of diminished responsibility for mentally disordered killers.

Insane prisoners were moved from Perth prison in Scotland to the State Institution for Mental Defectives at Carstairs in Lanarkshire to establish Scotland’s first secure hospital for mentally disordered offenders, to be known as the State Mental Hospital. The Royal… Continue reading →

Ruth Ellis was married to an alcoholic dentist, who she killed with a gun at the behest of a new boyfriend David Blakely who threatened her with violence. She had suffered significant sexual abuse from her father when she was… Continue reading →

19-year-old mentally handicapped and epileptic Derek Bentley was hanged for the murder of a policeman he did not kill. He was party to a burglary of a factory in Croydon with a 16-year old delinquent call Chris Evans. When they… Continue reading →

The ISTD separated into two parts, forming the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency and the Scientific Group for the Discussion of Delinquency.

Timothy Evans a man with learning disability was wrongly hanged for the murder of his baby daughter. It was later discovered that the chief witness against him, his landlord, John Christie, was the murderer. A proper psychiatric examination would have… Continue reading →