‘Insane criminals’ and the ‘criminally insane’: criminal asylums in Norway,1895–1940

Introduction

The incarceration of people, who are either assumed to be or in fact really do suffer from insanity in a manner that makes them dangerous, is absolutely necessary; but incarceration is also and will always be cruel and should be limited when possible. It is not a benefit for the incarcerated. It is not first and foremost for their sake, but for society’s sake, that the incarceration must take place. (Norwegian Criminalist Association, 1894: 26) ¹

This extract is from a lecture ‘On the treatment of insane criminals’ given by Paul Winge, a Norwegian psychiatrist (1857–1920), to the Norwegian Criminalist Association in November 1893. In 1894 the first criminal asylum, Kriminalasylet, was opened in Norway, and in 1923 another one, Reitgjerdet asylum, was opened. These asylums are the subjects of this article. The quote above gives the reasons for incarcerating such patients: long-term confinement was deemed necessary in order to protect society from dangerous or disruptive insane persons. This quote also reveals humanitarian considerations: incarceration was cruel, even though it was regarded as a therapeutic intervention as the asylums were thought to provide a curative and safe environment for the patients.

These patients would typically fall into two descriptive categories, and hence the distinction in the title of this paper: ‘insane criminals’ and ‘criminally insane’. ² This dichotomy might seem arbitrary, but was commonly accepted by psychiatrists around 1900. The ‘insane criminal’ was a term describing ‘intellectually and morally challenged or defected individuals, such as psychopaths and habitual delinquents’, while the term ‘criminally insane’ was used to describe those who had committed crimes while being acutely bewildered by their insanity (Gjessing, 1929). ³ Both categories would be eligible for these criminal asylums. The reasons for establishing these asylums were both practical and judicial. In the 1840s, two laws were passed in Norway: a new Criminal Act in 1842 and a new Insanity Act in 1848. Both Acts were considered to be among the most humane laws in Europe at the time (Riaunet, 2014: 25). The Criminal Act prohibited punishing the insane, and such offenders could therefore not be imprisoned. On the other hand, the Insanity Act prohibited admitting anyone with a criminal record or criminal behaviour into ordinary asylums. Insane criminals and the criminally insane consequently became legal ‘inbetweeners’ and a judicial headache for the authorities. In spite of the ban, many of these ‘inbetweeners’ were still put in ordinary asylums. As a result, the problem of ‘insane criminals and the criminally insane’ was repeatedly addressed by several asylum directors in the following years.

Asylum directors, who were also psychiatrists, regarded the first group, the ‘insane criminals’, as a constant disadvantage in any asylum. Such patients were thought to have a low potential for improvement, and disturb the treatment of ordinary patients (Kringlen, 2004). The second group, the ‘criminally insane’, were regarded as unpredictable and difficult to treat. Norwegian asylum directors kept pushing for new solutions on the issue of insane criminals and the criminally insane, many of whom were thought to be dangerous. The label ‘dangerous’ can justify society’s expulsion of certain individuals, and this description has been applied to a number of groups, as it is not firmly defined and can encompass different things. As mentioned in the opening quote, dangerousness was also linked to insanity, and gradually the task of such labelling was granted to professionals. Towards the latter part of the nineteenth century, psychiatrists became the holders of special knowledge about ‘dangerousness’ (Greig, 2002). Branching out from medicine and engaging in criminological research on criminals, psychiatrists served as specialists assessing dangerousness, both in court and outside. Criminological research thus transformed the relationship between psychiatry and criminal justice, turning it into a symbiotic one (Wetzell, 2000: 3). The societal expulsion of dangerous individuals was tantamount to institutionalization. However, this required institutions tailored for such a purpose.

New humanitarian ideas on treatment and punishment sparked various reforms in the nineteenth century, such as the opening of asylums. The core of humanitarianism was a moral of kindness, benevolence and sympathy extended to all human beings. Humanitarian ideas developed in parallel with modern science, and contributed to the values and ideals formed in modern medicine (Wifstad, 2007). This included the new discipline psychiatry. Some have claimed that medicine has since diverged from humanitarianism (e.g. Nylenna, 2000). However, in the 1890s debates about the ‘inbetweeners’, the humanitarian perspective seems to have been of vital importance to those involved. While most of Europe and the USA established high-security wards connected to asylums or prisons, Norway chose a British model (Thomassen, 2015a: 31). Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet were high-security asylums that were separate from ordinary asylums and prisons, and they were the only two of that kind in Norway. ⁴ Both institutions were located in Trondheim, due to a lack of suitable buildings in the capital (Sth.Prp.No. 73, 1894: 597). While these asylums became a permanent residence for many of the patients, they provided only a temporary stay for others. In many ways, these asylums constituted a society within society, a secluded world upholding most sides of everyday life.

The concept ‘Total institutions’ was developed by the sociologist Erving Goffman. These are isolated, enclosed social systems whose primary purpose is to control most aspects of its participants’ lives. ⁵ According to Goffman (1961/1991: 81), ‘it is widely appreciated that total institutions typically fall considerably short of their official aims’. While the present article aims to give some insight into these two asylums and their patients, Goffman’s statement makes an interesting focal point. Did Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet fall short of their official aims and, if so, in what way?

Method and theoretical approach

This article discuss patients in high-security asylums in Norway in the period 1895–1940, drawing on patient records from two institutions, Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet, both located in Trondheim. All the patients were male. Their aim was to confine and treat ‘criminally insane’ or ‘insane criminals’, preferably those considered dangerous to the public. My analysis is based on the asylums’ archives: patient casebooks written by staff, routine protocols, and letters written by patients or to patients. These archives have never before been opened for research, and my study is therefore the first to use this set of data. Using these documents, I will examine the asylum practices and the patients admitted and their characteristics: socially, medically and criminally. I will also discuss the intentions and visions that constitute the official aims of these two asylums, using various lectures, debates, Green Papers, White Papers and the judicial framework of the institutions. When the results are compared, we might see whether these asylums fulfilled their official aims, or if they fell short, just as Goffman postulates.

The admission procedures

Two types of patient records were used to analyse the process of admission to the asylums. The main case-notes were written by the Medical Director, who was also head of the asylum. He was obliged to give some mandatory information about the patients, but otherwise had great freedom in what he wrote. These records are therefore semi-standardized. The second type of record contains daily notes about everything that happened in the asylum, when it concerned the patient in question. These included individual behaviour and particular incidents, and they were written by the inspector in charge (Thomassen, 2010: 82). Both types of record reveal what was conceived as dangerousness or disruptive behaviour.

Assessing insanity and dangerousness is a legal procedure based on psychiatric knowledge. Legal professionals played a decisive role in all these patient histories, because the asylums operated within legal frameworks. Many legal decisions rested upon psychiatric assessments and declarations also, psychiatric arguments played a part in law-making processes. Because of this symbiotic practice, law and psychiatry have been called ‘partners’ (Schaanning, 2002: 35) and even ‘uneasy bedfellows’ (Greig, 2002: 19). The liaison between these two professions is evident in, and of importance to, the establishment of forensic psychiatry, as in the case of these two asylums: firstly, through the debates leading up to establishing these asylums, as the participants mainly consisted of psychiatrists and legal professionals; secondly, through the asylum practice as psychiatrists and legal professionals continued to cooperate. To the patients, these two professions represented the authorities, a counterpart that could be both ally and enemy. Goffman (1961/1991: 127) included these professions in his term ‘mediators’.

The asylums

After Reitgjerdet opened in 1923, Kriminalasylet gradually achieved a more specialized function as a facility confining the patients from Reitgjerdet who absconded most, or were likely to do so. The two institutions actively cooperated until Kriminalasylet closed in 1963, when all patients were transferred to Reitgjerdet. Although both asylums were established to confine insane criminals, they were authorized through separate laws, had different admission criteria and different regulations, were of different sizes and located in two very different types of building.

The attempt to hospitalize criminal insanity and incapacitate dangerousness happened in the early years of social liberalism in Norway. At this time, there was a growing perception of the evils of industrialized society. The idea developed that the state should foster and protect the social, political and economic environments in which individuals would have the best chance of acting according to the best of their conscience. Thus, criminal lunatics were considered a social problem best solved by the authorities. Before this time, such individuals were mostly left in the care (or lack of care) of their families, if not confined in prisons or madhouses (Blomberg, 2005). The term ‘asylum’ was modern, indicating a new and improved era; its Latin origin meant ‘sanctuary’. Through the nineteenth century, institutions such as asylums were established for a variety of purposes and with the best of intentions. These institutions have inspired several studies and theories. In the field of historical psychiatry research, a number of authors have been influential, such as Michel Foucault, Roy Porter, Erving Goffman and Andrew Scull. The theories and narratives of these authors created a picture of all asylums, and this can only be adjusted through studies using actual patient records and asylum data. In the present study, only Goffman is an explicit theoretical source.

Goffman

The total institution model was first presented in Erving Goffman’s widely known and much quoted study of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC, in the 1950s (Goffman, 1961/1991). This book, Asylums, was well received, but has since also been criticized from many angles (e.g. Karmel, 1969; Lemert, 1981; Levinson and Gallagher, 1964; Linn, 1968; Siegler and Osmond, 1971). In his study, Goffman used qualitative data to describe the meaning of mental hospitalization for patients. He depicted the hospital as an authoritarian system, and through the model of total institutions viewed it as equivalent to prisons, military camps, monasteries and concentration camps. This touches a main point of criticism of Goffman’s use of this model in his study of mental institutions. Some critics see his portrayals as exaggerated and overdrawn, and think that his generalizations about mental hospitals are inadequate. However, the present article discusses two criminal asylums that resembled institutions such as prisons more than ordinary asylums did, like St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, where Goffman conducted his fieldwork. Hence, these criminal asylums could fit both Goffman’s second and third types of total institutions (Goffman, 1961/1991: 16).

Another main point of criticism concerns how Goffman understates the fact that the patients were actually suffering from illness. In his early view, mental illness was a label and one of the most discrediting and socially damaging of all stigmas. The patients at Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet had obvious individual experiences of suffering, and cannot be described simply as labelled. Before these patients were admitted to the criminal asylums, other measures had failed repeatedly, just as Goffman (1961/1991: 125) says: ‘offenders who are eventually hospitalized are likely to have had a long series of ineffective actions taken against them’. As critics have argued, some of the meaning of life and the privileges, which these patients lost as a result of their illness while on the ‘outside’, were regained on the ‘inside’, and this contradicts what Goffman called ‘mortification of self’. Some of the patients in my study seemed to thrive within the walls of the asylum, and even Goffman (p. 124) admitted that for some patients: ‘entrance to mental hospital can sometimes bring relief …’. He conducted his study more than two decades later than the period of my study, and society had changed remarkably by then. It might seem as if society progressed, but had left the asylums behind, increasingly affecting their legitimacy. If so, these asylums had greater legitimacy in the period 1895–1940.

The official aims

In 1894, a Norwegian government-appointed committee set out recommendations for the establishment of a criminal asylum, and these were published as an official parliamentary proposal later that year. The need for such an asylum was described in the introduction as follows:

Since this country has no criminal asylum, insane criminals have been admitted to ordinary asylums, but this has caused severe disadvantages, and the idea of a separate asylum for insane criminals has therefore repeatedly been discussed, and such an asylum could also accommodate the criminally insane. (Sth.Prp.No. 73, 1894: 596)

The need for criminal asylums had been raised several times since the mid-nineteenth century, but towards the end of the century some medical directors of ordinary asylums took this discussion to a new level. Their main arguments were cited in the parliamentary proposal. Michael Holmboe, the Medical Director of Rotvold Asylum, argued that ordinary asylums were not designed and organized for the detention of criminals. They lacked the proper means of treatment for this group of patients, and had few means to prevent patients from escaping. Further, it was argued that the presence of insane criminals and the criminally insane had a disruptive effect on ordinary patients and the treatment regime in general. Axel H. Lindboe, the Medical Director of Gaustad Asylum, claimed a new solution was urgent, and others agreed.

After discussing the various possible options, the Parliament made the decision to convert a former penal ward in Trondheim into a criminal asylum. This was meant to be temporary, as the building was described as ‘scary and prisonlike, surrounded by a tall wooden fence which deprives the rooms of sunlight’ (Sth.Prp.No. 73, 1894: 598). So, from a therapeutic perspective, the building did not meet the demands. Nevertheless, Kriminalasylet opened in 1895, and did not shut down until 1963, so this was not a temporary solution. The 1894 committee had called for a more permanent solution to be explored elsewhere as soon as possible, but stated that Kriminalasylet would, ‘In a rather satisfactory way make room for a sufficient number of patients so that at least the most dangerous of them could be removed from ordinary asylums’ (p. 599). This constituted the primary official aim of Kriminalasylet, which was a third option (with prisons and ordinary asylums), intended to confine the most dangerous of insane criminals.

A separate law for Kriminalasylet was finally passed in 1898, three years after the asylum had opened. This law transferred the responsibility of admission and discharge to the Ministry of Justice rather than leaving it with the asylum’s Medical Director, as was the case with ordinary asylums. This made Kriminalasylet the only health institution governed by a body other than the health authorities in Norway. The idea was to ensure that not only medical factors would be considered in this process; the patients were not just insane, but they also posed a hazard to society. This concurred with the asylum’s primary aim of protecting society. Section 1 of the law also stated which patients the asylum should accept: first, ‘male convicts who were declared insane’ and second, ‘male insane persons who had committed illegal acts, or were so morally degenerate or so dangerous to society that they are not suitable for treatment in ordinary insane asylums’ (Oth.Prp.No.4, 1898). As the 1894 proposal had stated, the asylum was intended for ‘not only insane criminals, but also the so-called criminally insane’. However, in its first five years of operation, Kriminalasylet had only 15 beds which was insufficient – a shortage of beds that had already been predicted in 1894. The Head of Medicinal Affairs in Norway said:

At the end of 1891 there were 36 criminally insane patients being cared for in ordinary asylums and there is reason to believe that this number has since increased. As the intention now is that the planned institution Kriminalasylet will admit such patients, the committee should know that the rooms on the ground floor, suited for 15 patients, will soon prove inadequate. (Sth.Prp.No. 73, 1894: 599)

Its first floor was not operative until 1900, when it provided the asylum with an extra 20 beds. However, the demand for high-security asylum beds was still not met. Psychiatrists and legal professionals soon began debating the need for a bigger criminal asylum. Since the 1894 proposal had stated that Kriminalasylet had too few beds, this debate was no surprise.

In 1919 a new proposal was published, discussing the possibility of converting a former leprosy hospital in Trondheim into a criminal asylum (St.Prp.Nr. 206, 1919). This asylum was to have 135 licensed beds for ‘especially disruptive and dangerous insane males’. The document’s introduction stresses the urgent need for such an asylum, because existing asylums were overcrowded, and there was a reported increase in disruptive patients.

The state asylums as well as the county asylums have in these past few years been so overcrowded that it has proved difficult to get new patients admitted, and the (ordinary) insane have therefore often had to wait several years for treatment. … The conditions are now so grave that inspectors, district doctors and asylum doctors find it necessary to bring this to the attention of the Head of Medicinal Affairs and the Ministry of Social Affairs. (p. 3)

Once again, social reality was the driving force behind the discussion. The participants’ professional backgrounds and positions gave legitimacy to the arguments about why the situation was unsatisfactory and about the solution. The 1919 proposal reveals a somewhat different primary aim: this asylum was designated to confine not just the ‘dangerous’, but also the ‘disruptive’ insane. Dangerousness was the initial worry when establishing Kriminalasylet, but the target group had now expanded. In the debate on establishing Reitgjerdet, dangerousness and the element of crime was not stressed, and the arguments about overcrowding and about protecting society remained the same. Thus, the primary aim of Reitgjerdet was wider and less rigid than that of Kriminalasylet. Psychiatrists and legal professionals opted for a new and bigger criminal asylum saying:

In connection with these concerns we must stress the urgency of converting Reitgjerdet into a criminal asylum for men, so that the ordinary asylums can get rid of those troublemaking criminal elements, currently disgracing the asylums. It is outrageous that people should have to put up with having their relatives [ordinary patients] spending time with such thugs. (p. 3)

The immediate concern at that time was the leprosy patients still remaining at Reitgjerdet. A further discussion in the 1919 proposal addresses the various options concerning the care of these patients. The other main concern was the economy; it was important for the government that the cost should be kept as low as possible. The budgetary decision was still in favour of converting the leprosy hospital into a new and bigger criminal asylum.

Reitgjerdet asylum also had its own law passed. The responsibility for admission and discharge was transferred from the asylum’s Medical Director to the Ministry of Social Affairs, thus putting this asylum under the control of the health authorities, whereas Kriminalasylet was under the Ministry of Justice. This difference in the authority reveals an intention based less on confinement and more on treatment. Nevertheless, the proposal emphasizes that ‘the purpose [for Reitgjerdet] is not solely the treatment and care of the criminally insane, but mainly the satisfactory confinement of disruptive and dangerous male individuals’ (p. 7). Both asylums had the protection of society as their official aim, while the aim of treatment and care was secondary. Confidence in successful treatment outcomes was declining around the turn of the century, and the group of insane assessed as dangerous, difficult and disruptive was no exception to this. The idea was to ‘incapacitate the incurable’, as the Norwegian law reformer and politician Bernhard Getz put it (Mæland, 2002: 329).

The law on Reitgjerdet was processed in 1922, and endorsed by the government soon after (Ot.Prp.Nr.51, 1922). This law stated that Reitgjerdet asylum was meant to admit ‘especially disruptive and dangerous insane male persons, not considered suitable for treatment in ordinary asylums’ (§1). This gave Reitgjerdet a wide range of potential patients. The element of crime was not mentioned, but behaviour and conduct were emphasized as the main factor in intended patients. The words ‘especially disruptive and dangerous insane’ point to the types of individuals that ordinary asylums were planning to get rid of. This difference in criteria between the two criminal asylums is evident when reading the patient casebooks from Reitgjerdet, where a substantial portion of the patients had no criminal record. These individuals might have been difficult and disruptive, but hardly ‘insane criminals’ or ‘criminally insane’.

The asylum population

Norway’s estimated population in 1900 was 2,240,000, and by 1940 it was 2,970,000. In the period 1895–1940 a total of 687 patients were recorded for both institutions, with 916 admissions, since some patients were admitted more than once. Kriminalasylet had 128 patients in this period, with an average age of 33.8 years at first admission. ⁶ Reitgjerdet had 559 patients, with an average age of 35.3 years at first admission. ⁷ All patients were male.

Kriminalasylet opened in February 1895 and received 10 patients that year, five less than it was licensed for. The patients came from all parts of Norway, except for one Finnish man who was soon returned to Finland. Most patients were transferred from prisons. A further seven new patients were admitted in 1896, three in 1897, two in 1898 and four in 1899. During this period, 11 patients left the asylum: four died and seven were transferred to ordinary asylums. Even after the asylum was expanded in 1900, the turnover of patients was low. After 1923 many of the new patients at Kriminalasylet were transfers from Reitgjerdet.

Reitgjerdet was significantly bigger and received 135 patients in its first year, so it was full. Partly due to the larger number of patients and partly due to the different admission criteria, these patients were a less homogenous group than those at Kriminalasylet. This was as expected, because Reitgjerdet was intended for a wider demand than Kriminalasylet. The patients admitted to Reitgjerdet came from all parts of the country, but were more often transferred from other asylums than from prisons. Many had spent their childhood or adolescence in various disciplinary homes for poor, sick or misbehaving children. Some died shortly after arrival, mainly from tuberculosis. The most dangerous among the patients at Reitgjerdet were transferred to Kriminalasylet, if possible and necessary. At Kriminalasylet the security was higher, and the staff was more experienced in handling dangerous patients.

For the patients in this study, the pre-patient phase and the in-patient phase will be described, as in Goffman’s study (1961/1991: 121). The records provide little information on the ex-patient phase, but information about the patients’ social backgrounds, crimes and behaviour is available. So who were these patients, socially, criminally and medically?

Social characteristics

Details of family background, upbringing, occupation and marital status were part of the mandatory information registered by the Medical Director. Records for ‘family background’ also contain descriptions about alcohol use, history of abuse and violence, illness in the family and prior stays in other institutions. The registrations also include information on whether other members of the family had a known history of mental illness, alcohol abuse, violence or institutionalization. Under ‘insanity in the family’, sometimes only the relative is given, for example ‘mother’, ‘father’ or ‘uncle’, but in some entries this is followed by a description, such as: ‘mother and aunt both very nervous’; ‘father and all 6 siblings are drunkards’; ‘father was retarded, as was the mother, and two brothers committed suicide by hanging’. Some descriptions reveal hardship or poverty, for example: ‘both parents lazy and prone to drift about (vagabonds)’; ‘father a vagabond and thief, mother took to the streets (prostitution)’.

Upbringing was often emphasized as the cause of the patient’s illness. One example is Lars, admitted to Kriminalasylet in October 1895.

The patient was born in 1863. His mother died when he was 4 or 5 years old, and the father, who supposedly married into a great fortune, then started drinking and ruined the family by doing so. The family soon ended up on welfare, and the boy was placed in different homes over the next years. His upbringing was severely neglected, and soon he was known for his cold and emotionless state of mind. (PJ, KA, L.nr 8) ⁸

The fact that such descriptions were common leads to the conclusion that most patients at Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet came from families with great social, medical and economic challenges. As such, these patients were part of the Lumpenproletariat, a term first coined by Karl Marx. It identifies a class of outcasts, degenerates and ‘submerged elements’ which include ‘beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements’. The term is sometimes translated as ‘dangerous classes’. ⁹

This conclusion is substantiated by the records of the patients’ occupational backgrounds. The most frequent occupation is the loosely descriptive term ‘worker’ or ‘day labourer’, indicating that these patients were not steady employees, but took manual work when available. The second largest group is ‘farming’, ‘fishing’ and ‘sailor’. These types of labour were common in Norway at this time. The agricultural revolution in the mid-nineteenth century had changed the country’s farming from self-sufficient to sales-based, as a part of the industrial revolution. Some of the patients are listed as both ‘farm boy’ and ‘fisherman’, suggesting they took employment were and when they could. Employment at sea was not unusual. The number of ‘sailors’ in Norway increased drastically after 1865, and reached 60,000 in 1890. ¹⁰ Many of them left home at a young age, seeking adventure as well as income. Harsh working conditions, little stability and much alcohol became a breeding ground for mental illness. There was also a heightened risk of syphilis among sailors, known as a cause of insanity at the time (Koren, 2008). Many of the sailors returned to Norway, only to spend the rest of their lives in institutions. This occupational background distinguishes them from another large group of patients listed as ‘vagabond’, ‘tramp’ or ‘vagrant’. While most patients had had a low income, this group probably had almost no income. A larger percentage of the patients at Kriminalasylet than at Reitgjerdet are listed in this group, but this conforms with the admission criteria in the law for Kriminalasylet: ‘male convicts’, ‘illegal acts’ (such as vagrancy) and ‘dangerous’.

Marital status is a somewhat unreliable characteristic at an individual level, but it is indicative at a general level. In the 1890s, and well into the 1950s, only about 2 in 10 of the adult population in Norway were unmarried (SSB, 1965: 27). In contrast, only about 2 in 10 of the patients at Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet were married, divorced or widowed. Marriage was a key to achieving social acceptance and meant access to care and a supportive environment. However, it also meant obligations and responsibility. The patients at Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet seem to have been deemed unattractive as partners, even before being declared insane. They simply did not meet the social requirements and failed in the selective processes. A few patients had wives who kept in touch, and a few wives even begged to have their husbands sent home. Others filed for divorce after their husbands were admitted. Some patients were admitted because they had brutalized or killed their wives or families. A patient named Amund was admitted to Reitgjerdet in 1924, partly because of violence to his family. The case-note says briefly: ‘he has behaved brutally towards wife and children, and threatened his neighbours many times. He is not wanted back home’ (PJ, RG, L.nr 158). The impact of failed romantic relationships on mental health was accentuated by the psychiatrists at Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet. Three patients were registered with the bittersweet ‘misfortunes in love’ as the cause of their insanity (PJ, KA, L.nr 93; PJ, RG, L.nr 475; PJ, RG, L.nr 72).

For most patients, it was the parents or siblings who kept in touch and with whom they tried to keep in touch by writing letters. There are numerous letters addressed to ‘mum’, many of which are filled with excuses, pleas to be allowed home, promises of better behaviour in the future, or declarations of their love and devotion (Thomassen, 2015b).

Crime characteristics

This category is challenging to analyse, primarily because the recording of crime was not structured. It was probably based on information the staff found to be of interest or what was available to them. In some patient records, a number of crimes are listed, and in others there are just brief descriptions of acts or offences that the patients had committed. In some records, there is a list of the patients’ convictions with dates and names of the court, while others say little about what repercussions these acts might have had. A second challenge in analysing these records is the variety of acts and offences described; also, patients had often committed more than one offence. While crime was a main criterion for admission at Kriminalasylet, it was not a mandatory criterion at Reitgjerdet. The difference is striking. Records for all the patients at Kriminalasylet have remarks about criminal acts, and often convictions, ¹¹ but the records for roughly 42% of the patients admitted to Reitgjerdet in this period had no mention of crime. Some of these patients fit the criterion ‘disruptive’ or ‘dangerous’, but most of them were admitted simply due to a lack of other options. This fact was pointed out by the Head of Medicine at Reitgjerdet, Karl Andresen, in the asylum’s annual report for 1923. According to him, the urgent need for hospital beds compelled Reitgjerdet to accept a large group that was neither criminally insane, insane criminals nor disruptive or difficult: ‘It was soon evident, that there was also a great need for beds for ordinary insane male patients, especially from the northern parts of Norway, and Reitgjerdet has since then admitted several of these, for whom no other asylum was able to make room’ (Andresen, 1923: 45). This was notably different from the official aim.

The results for the patients in this study are in broad agreement with Andresen’s statement. However, more than half of the asylum population at Reitgjerdet and all patients at Kriminalasylet had prior convictions or criminal behaviour of some sort. Their crimes are various and not easily quantifiable. For the sake of simplicity, I divided the various acts and offences into six categories: (1) murder, (2) crimes for profit, (3) violence, (4) sex offences, (5) arson, and (6) intimidation.

When dangerousness was being discussed before the establishment of both asylums, murder was stressed as a main criterion, and prevention of dangerousness was an important part of the official aims. Yet only 21 patients at Kriminalasylet and only 28 at Reitgjerdet had committed murder. Moreover, the registered murderers among the patients are not those described as the most dangerous (Dahl and Thomassen, 2015). A patient at Kriminalasylet, Karl Oscar, had: ‘changed character around the age of 14, became increasingly defiant with uncontrolled anger fits. From the age of 23 he developed delusions of persecution and a fear of being poisoned. Often got into fights and murdered a man during one of these’ (PJ, KA, L.nr 81). He is not described as or declared to be dangerous. He was admitted in 1914, and stayed until 1940 when he was discharged as ‘still insane’. He was never re-admitted to Kriminalasylet or Reitgjerdet.

Debates and White Papers throughout this period focused on crimes for profit, and it is no surprise to find this category well represented in both asylums, especially Kriminalasylet. From the descriptions in the casebooks, it is evident that these patients were not admitted on single counts of petty theft and that their criminal behaviour was more disruptive and externalizing. Most of these patients are described in terms such as ‘habitual thieves’, ‘notoriously fraudulent’ or ‘arrested numerous times for thievery’. Alvin, a patient at Kriminalasylet, was described as follows: ‘poor upbringing and poor abilities. Dishonest and thieving already as a youngster, both at home and at school. Repeat offences, carried out several bad-mannered and idiotic burglaries. Arrested numerous times’ (PJ, KA, L.nr 79). The description reveals that such behaviour was often seen as a chronic personality trait and thus not preventable by other measures than incarceration. Of course, crimes for profit represented a ‘danger to others’, in the sense that homes, businesses and the economic balance in society could be threatened by high levels of such crimes. Such behaviour qualified as both disruptive and criminal.

Violence was a particularly difficult category to define, since so many acts and offences might be described as violence. An explanation is therefore necessary. Murder and sexual offences are not included as they are separate categories. However, attempted murder is included, since this is clearly a violent act, and is not registered in the ‘murder’ category. Verbal threats are included in the category ‘intimidation’, and are not registered as violence. Even with such a strict definition, the number of violent patients is relatively high, and for Reitgjerdet it surpasses all the other categories. Common descriptions are; ‘behaves brutally’, ‘violent behaviour’, ‘unmotivated attacks on others’ or ‘brutal towards others’. And more specific descriptions; ‘attacked his fiancée with an axe’, ‘comes from a long line of brutal men’, ‘has violent fits, destroying everything around him’ or ‘numerous attempts to strangle strangers’ (PJ, RG, L.nr 615, nr 486, nr 330, nr 117).

Sex offences were politically and emotionally loaded crimes that sometimes got attention from the media, the public and politicians. Many of the patients in Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet had committed offences against minors or highly violent rapes of women. Three of these offences had resulted in the deaths of the victims (all children). Sexual offences were often debated in the years before and after 1900, and they represented a special type of dangerousness. In particular, the Women’s Movement in Norway was concerned with the threat such behaviour posed to women and children (Myhre and Thomassen, 2014). It is therefore not surprising to find relatively high numbers of patients in this category. These offenders were also described as dangerous more often than others (Dahl and Thomassen, 2015: 191).

Arson is still generally linked to mental illness. All the patients registered with arson were also diagnosed with ‘idiotia’, ‘insania degenerativa’ or ‘dementia’, a diagnosis indicating intellectual disability. Arson represents possible fatalities as well as huge material loss, and was central to the discussions on dangerousness leading up to the establishment of these asylums. Although the offence may be grave, they were scarcely described in the casebooks, and only two contain descriptions of what the patient had set on fire. One patient, Nicolai, had, for instance: ‘set fire to the coal storage at Gaustad asylum’ while he was a patient there. It is further noted that ‘he was never charged or sentenced for the offence’ (PJ, KA, L.nr 49). He was transferred directly to Kriminalasylet after the arson, and remained a patient there for 28 years.

The category of intimidation includes many different types of behaviour. Intimidation involves threats or threatening behaviour, and is the crime of intentionally or knowingly putting another person in fear of imminent bodily injury. Examples would be stalking people, lurking around people’s homes or acting strangely in public places. Arson and intimidation were almost evenly distributed in the two asylums, and quite a few of these patients had no other registered offences. Their actions were considered to be dangerous enough to keep them confined for many years.

Medical characteristics

It is difficult to analyse the patients’ medical characteristics solely from the diagnoses in the casebooks, since psychiatric classification was not exact in this period when it was being developed and continuously influenced by new research from other countries. During the nineteenth century, the main influence in Norway was German psychiatry, in particular that of Emil Kraepelin, but traces of French and Italian psychiatry are also evident, such as that of Jean-Étienne-Dominique Esquirol, Bénédict Morel and Cesare Lombroso.

In French psychiatry, Esquirol anticipated modern views when he suggested that some mental illnesses may be caused by emotional disturbances rather than by organic brain damage. He also provided the first accurate description of mental retardation as an entity separate from insanity as early as 1838 (Esquirol, 1838). Even so, in the period 1895–1940, people with intellectual disabilities were still classified as insane in Norway, and were therefore admitted to asylums. In fact, as many as 21.8% of the patients at Reitgjerdet in 1923–40 were diagnosed as ‘idiot’ or ‘imbecile’. Most of these patients had criminal records and can fairly be described as either ‘dangerous’ or ‘disruptive’, and this might explain the high proportion of patients with intellectual disabilities at Reitgjerdet. The diagnosis used at Kriminalasylet does not clearly pinpoint intellectual disability. In opposition to the leading theories of his time, the German psychiatrist Kraepelin did not believe that certain symptoms were characteristic for specific illnesses. Clinical observation led him to the hypothesis that specific combinations of symptoms in relation to the course of psychiatric illnesses allowed one to identify a particular mental disorder. The second Medical Director at Kriminalasylet, Hans Evensen, did his psychiatric training under Kraepelin, ¹² and the clinical approach used there, and at Reitgjerdet, resembled Kraepelin’s. The concept of degeneration first became influential in psychiatry through Traité des dégénérescences by the French psychiatrist Bénédict Morel (1857). Later, this concept was picked up by the Italian doctor Cesare Lombroso, who in 1876 applied it to his phrenological studies on prison inmates. The concept of degeneration is present in the records in the present study, but in ways that resemble Morel more than Lombroso.

Tracing the exact influence of the psychiatrists working in Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet is difficult, if not impossible. Diagnoses include ‘Insania degenerativa’ and ‘Dementia praecox’, as well as ‘Insania paranoides’, ‘Insania alcoholica’, ‘Insania epileptica’, ‘Psychopatia’ and ‘Melancholia’. As already mentioned, a substantial proportion of patients was given the diagnosis ‘idiotia’ or ‘imbecile’. The descriptions of the patients’ illnesses are therefore important additions to the diagnosis and sometimes reveal more about the medical characteristics outlining the asylum population. These descriptions focus mostly on the patients’ behaviour and state of mind, and are not strict adaptations to the given diagnoses. Thus, the diagnoses itself appear to be of less value in this individually oriented approach. The first patient admitted to Kriminalasylet, Alexander, was described as follows:

Admitted to Rotvold asylum on Nov 25th 1893 with the diagnoses ‘paranoia’. The patient has been quite a drunkard and thereto very immoral in his behaviour. His temperament is described as very vehement. He is convicted of murder, as he stabbed a woman who had the misfortune of getting in his way. While in prison he has been depressed and frustrated about not getting a reprieve. In the spring of 1892 he complained of sleeplessness and appeared confused, upon which the prison physician suspected him of simulating insanity. His suspicion was changed when the patient later started to talk incoherently and at one point stabbed himself in the arm, and he soon stopped eating and talking. He was transferred to Rotvold asylum for observation, before admittance here. (PJ, KA, L.nr 1)

This is an excerpt from the handwritten record which ran to more than four pages. The patient was 38 years old when admitted to Kriminalasylet, and he spent 22 months there before being transferred to an ordinary asylum closer to his home town. In the casebook he is entered as suffering from ‘paranoia’, as was the diagnosis he was given while under observation at another asylum. Apart from this, the diagnosis is not mentioned at all. The entries in the day-to-day protocol describe the patient’s chores and his moods and do not try to identify the cause of his illness, as found for other patients. Another patient, Bernt, who was admitted a few years laer, illustrates how the cause of illness was sought found: ‘As a child he was headstrong, hot-tempered and wild. At a young age, he started using tobacco and kept bad company, although he is reported to have had good abilities and a quick perception. Confirmation [in church] completed at the usual time, diligent and well behaved in school’ (PJ, KA, L.nr 12). The casebook then continues by describing an identifiable break in his upbringing: ‘At some point in his late childhood, both his parents started drinking and left their home and work unattended. Sometime after this the patient developed an inclination to steal. He was then imprisoned several times during 1891 and 1892. From his last stay in prison, he is described as rude and impolite, unreliable and wanton’ (PJ, KA, L.nr 12). This patient was diagnosed with ‘insania degenerativa’, indicating his illness was inherited biologically, socially or morally. The term ‘degenerativa’ indicates the widely influential concept of degeneration, as formulated by Morel, following the theory of ‘progressività’, a progressive development of symptoms from one generation to the next. ¹³

Although the medical staff was obviously up-to-date on psychiatric research and theories, diagnosis seems to have been of little importance to the clinicians in their daily work. A diagnosis was a ‘classification’ of the symptoms found in each patient, but it did not provide a ‘recipe’ or ‘clue’ as to what treatment the patient would benefit from, or how each patient should be handled in everyday life. From a humanitarian perspective, the diagnosis failed to ‘meet the patient’, which seemed to be of great importance to the psychiatrists and staff during this period. It was essential for them to get to know each patient in order to provide good care and to secure a safe environment for everyone living there. Like the founders of moral treatment in England, who rejected medical theories and techniques, their efforts focused on minimizing restraints as well as cultivating rationality and moral strength. In this way, the patient’s autonomy was recognized. Security was also about more than just walls, fences and locked doors – it was upheld through good communication and care.

Discussion

Goffman’s model proved to have only limited value when analysing the patients’ records at these two asylums. Although these institutions resemble the conditions of total institutions and the patients were generally admitted for long periods without the possibility of leaving, they were also cared for and included in a community of sorts. The results of the present study seem a long way from the cold and authoritarian establishment that Goffman describes. There may be many reasons: different countries, different cultures, different period in time and different perspectives. After all, Goffman (1961/1991: 8) admitted that he: ‘came to the hospital with no great respect for the discipline of psychiatry nor for the agencies involved with psychiatric practice’. I probably had more respect when I started the study and, more importantly, my respect grew while reading these casebooks.

The Norwegian criminal asylums seem different from Goffman’s asylum in two ways: firstly, those involved in the establishment and operation of these asylums all seem to have had genuine humanitarian concerns. The humanitarian intentions are only slightly evident in the official aims, but were clearly an aim for the directors and the staff who were concerned with the interests, the needs and the care of all their patients. This intention was perhaps most clearly expressed by Winge when he said: ‘May these discussions contribute to making Norway a humanitarian model nation for the treatment of the insane’ (Norwegian Criminalist Association, 1894: 37). Institutionalization was viewed as a humane option, benefiting both society and patients; this admirable intention did not stop at the front door, but was an ideal for the staff as well (Riaunet, 2014).

Secondly, the staff all acknowledged these patients as exactly that: patients. Goffman (1961/1991) uses the term inmates many times in his study, as if to accentuate the patients’ demeaning situation. According to him, their status as mental patients inflicted a stigma and a ‘mortification of self‘, but most of them were stigmatized long before becoming patients. As Porter (1996) points out, patients feel their sense of identity is eroded both by psychiatry and society. These two asylums did strive to achieve a meaningful everyday life for their patients: everyone was clothed and fed, work was varied and voluntary, coercion was actively avoided, and it was possible for patients to keep in touch with their families. This exceeded what many of them were able to achieve in the ‘free world’.

Both asylums had to deal with the reality of funding and resources. These were often not sufficient for the ideals and visions embedded in the laws that authorized the asylums. The institutions functioned as something between a treatment facility and a high-security asylum, and the patients became subjects in the everyday negotiations concerning their life in the institution. They were not expected to adapt passively, but to interact actively with their surroundings. Many of the patients also enjoyed liberties and freedom within the walls of the institutions. One patient at Kriminalasylet, Ludvig, wrote numerous newspaper articles while he was there, and even did fundraising for various charities (PJ, KA, L.nr 22). Another patient was found to have a set of keys to Reitgjerdet; he had had the keys for many years, but had never used them to run away. The Medical Director politely told the patient this was neither intended nor acceptable, and the patient then handed back the keys (PJ, RG, L.nr 372). With the antipsychiatry movement in the 1960s and 1970s, there was an intellectual and societal focus on power, discipline and control. But the daily case-notes from Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet illustrate how the social realities of the asylums were more nuanced, and that patient freedom was also part of the asylum life.

Goffman’s postulate that total institutions typically fall short of their official aims is still worth addressing. Did Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet fall short of their official aims? The answer cannot be a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, because they had quite different terms of operation, and their laws, target group, size and location were completely different. All these factors affected the outcome. Kriminalasylet seems to have met its official aims to a greater extent than Reitgjerdet did. The wide admission criteria at Reitgjerdet allowed patients to be admitted simply because there were no other options: ordinary asylums were full, so the newly opened Reitgjerdet asylum took in many of these patients, even if not officially eligible. Nevertheless, in these first few decades of operation these asylums did not fall too short of their official aims. The main deviation was in the number of patients admitted to Reitgjerdet without criminal behaviour, assessed dangerousness or disruptive conduct, but it still received patients intended for high-security confinement. In many ways, both these asylums displayed an ability to adapt to the needs of society and the needs of the patients they admitted. The Medical Director, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health all seemed to view the shortage of hospital beds as a common challenge, one that they shared with ordinary asylums. Addressing Goffman’s concern requires an understanding of how the requirements estimated before establishing the asylums turned out to be different once the asylums were in operation. The current situation detemined which patients ended up in criminal asylums, just as much as propositions and laws did. When Hitler occupied Norway in 1940, the situation got worse. The Germans requisitioned many of the asylum buildings, and ordinary insane patients were sent wherever there was room. Reitgjerdet nearly doubled its patient population during the war. Until then, however, the operation stayed close to the official aims at both these asylums.