Antisocial Behaviour by Young People

Abstract

Dr. Rutter’s latest work is a welcome addition to the spate of books and articles which have appeared in recent years on this topic - especially welcome since the title tells us where he stands. This text is about the variety of appearances of behaviour that puts others at risk, independent of cause or presumptive etiology. It does not attempt to characterize antisocial acts as necessarily Psychiatric, and he is careful not to force fit them into the rubric of Conduct Disorder, as so many American texts have and continue to do, with the implication of a defineable etiologic pathway. In this sense, his book is far more Sociologic than Psychiatric. Having said that, it is praiseworthy in its scope, and as is typical for this author, for the sheer number of references cited - about seventy-five pages of them. It is, and is intended to be, a scholarly text - a reference book, not an evening’s read. There are thirteen chapters, each of which is well-organized, with an introduction, frequent headings, extensive use of bulletted lists and extremely good charts, and each with a summary of the main points. The introductory chapter makes it plain that the authors intend to abjure categorical reductionism, and they largely succeed. If there is a fault to this text, is that it tries perhaps too hard to do so - it appears to avoid conclusions regarding causation (‘splitting’ versus ‘lumping’) to the point where it can be difficult to derive an organizing perspective. Where putative ‘pathways’ to delinquent behaviour are discussed, there tends to be a reluctance to single out one among many such possible pathways as being of special significance. For the researcher, this book is invaluable, by virtue of the scope and quality of statistical reporting, if not always analysis. I was fascinated by the richness of the data, drawn primarily from the British Home Office, but frequently incorporating some of the excellent databases developed in Sweden. Where available, attempt has been made by the authors to retrieve data from as many countries in the world as possible. One gets the distinct feeling that a principle hurdle facing the authors is that many countries do not collect the same data as others, or collect it in such an idiosyncratic fashion as to defy comparison with other countries. I could not help but notice that reporting crime rates by ethnic origin seems to be less ‘politically-incorrect’ in British publications than American. Of special interest was a chart that must have been very difficult to compile, which broke down the reported rate of crime by victims versus the number of arrests made, and then the number of cases handled short of prosecution versus those that go to trial. I had never seen anything quite like this in other texts. It certainly brought home the message that what comes to the attention of law enforcement agencies ‘on the street’ bears little resemblance to the population most-frequently studied by Forensic Psychiatrists - youth in detention. This text should be on the shelf of any criminologist or Forensic Psychiatrist, and serves as an invaluable tool for academic Psychiatrists writing articles and/or teaching courses on disruptive behaviour disorders. The respect for the topic by the authors is evident, as is the firm adherence to presentation of facts (as they are available) in lieu of conclusion - premature or not - with respect to causation. I look forward to the possibility of a next edition of this work, as the world statistics are open to the careful filtering of Dr. Rutter and his colleagues.

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