Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe
Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe (Crime and Insanity in Women) is the first book by German psychiatrist Paul Näcke, published in 1894. Based on his work at the Hubertusburg psychiatric hospital, it examines crime and mental illness specifically in women and aims to fill gaps in what was known at the time.
Näcke challenges the then‑popular idea that criminals are born, a notion tied to Cesare Lombroso and positivist criminology. He argues that some criminals are mentally ill at the time of their crime and should not always be punished as harshly. Instead, criminals can be subjects who may suffer from mental disease and deserve consideration from judges and doctors.
The book is written for academics and professionals in medicine, law, theology, and education. Näcke wants to show how psychiatry and criminology can work together to improve punishment and treatment, and he notes that research on female offenders was especially scarce.
The structure includes seven chapters. He starts with detailed observations from about 100 female patients, then moves to a statistical analysis of factors such as occupation, marriage history, family background, intelligence, symptoms, and crimes. He also discusses how bodily features do not reliably predict criminality, though he records some physical observations.
Näcke compares his findings with earlier research and asks whether factors like masturbation or illegitimate children influence insanity. He estimates that about a quarter of women might have been wrongly committed because they were insane only at the time of the crime. He suggests that longer prison terms can increase psychosis and argues for separating mentally ill patients from criminals in treatment, while recognizing a bidirectional link between crime and insanity.
In later chapters he offers biological interpretations of his data and discusses the broader implications for law and institutions. The book received positive reviews for its careful, analytical study of female offenders and for its potential to influence legislation and practice in criminology and psychiatry.
Näcke’s work helped shift the field away from the idea of a fixed, “born” criminal toward a view that mental illness can play a key role in crime. It emphasized differentiating between criminals and mentally ill people and considering insanity in legal decisions. The book also supported early statistical approaches to studying female crime and contributed to ongoing debates about punishment, treatment, and reform in penal systems.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:58 (CET).