Political abuse and forensic psychiatry in Communist

Romania
Authors: Sorin Hostiuc, Octavian Buda,Eduard Drima

Psychiatry was often used for political reasons in the second half of the 20th century, especially in the former communist countries. According to
the Global Initiative on Psychiatry, political abuse of psychiatry is defined as the incorrect usage of diagnoses, treatments, or psychiatry admissions
in order to limits fundamental rights of persons or population groups in certain countries. Most studies regarding political abuse as a repressive
measure analysed it in either USSR or China. Romania is one of the countries from the former Communist Block in which psychiatry was proven
to be used as a form of repression against political dissidents.
The main types of psychiatric abuse against dissidents, according to Cucu and Danilă, were:
• Admissions associated with political events – in psychiatry hospitals were admitted healthy individuals in order to limit the changes that they
would show at political demonstrations against the regime
• Abusive diagnosis and treatment of persons with psychiatric pathologies (either real or false), including treatments with neuroleptics and
electroconvulsive therapy without proper a medical reason
• Creation of specialized institutions, designated to treat dissidents (Gătaia Hospital, Bălăceanca Hospital)
• Laws and regulations as means to encourage psychiatric abuse (Decree 12/1965, Decree 313/1981, Law 3/1978)
One of the most important tools aimed to favor psychiatric abuse against dissidents was represented by their involuntary admission in specialized
units/hospitals
The purpose of this presentation is to analyze two articles regarding involuntary admission from the first part of the communist era, in order to see
whether their statistical data can reveal some hidden messages regarding the the of this method against political detainees.

Pamfil E, Stossel St, Crișan T. Comportamentul delictual și
alienația mintală [Criminal behavior and mental disease.
Probleme de medicină judiciară și de criminalistică”, 1965(IV):27-
35
Bilegan I, Quai I, Petrescu L, Săroiu I, Voinea V, DragomirescuV
Costea V. Probleme actuale ale asistenței delincvenților cu
tulburări psihice[Actual problems regarding the assistance of
delinquents suffering from psychiatric pathologies] Probleme de
medicină judiciară și de criminalistică 1969(VII-VIII): 27-35.

The authors tried to correlate criminal behavior with mental disease

with the aid of a comprehensive statistics from the Timișoara Institute
of Legal Medicine.
Most of the article analyzes statistically the most frequent psychiatric
pathologies in patients with previous criminal behaviors. The main
causes were psychopathies (24,7%), schizophrenia (10.8%), mental
retardation (9.4%), neuroses (8.2%).
What is interesting in this article is however a table in which are
presented correlations between psychiatric pathologies and insight.
In criminal offenses against the state insight was usually considered
to be abolished, while in common offenses - present.
For example, completely abolished insight wasidentified in 29% of
the cases. If the criminal offense was illegal border passing, the
insight w asabolished in 46%, if it was offenses against public order –
43%, and if it was offense related to religion – 75%.
In criminal offenses against the person, an abolished insight was
identified in a lower percentage – manslaughter – 20%, stealing-23%,
breaking an entry – 23.8%.
Some criminal offenses are oddly correlated with specific pathologies
– for example illegal border passing was associated with
schizophrenia (24%), or mental retardation (12%).
All these results suggest a ”nuanced” interpretation of the
pathologies, depending on the crime. A lack of insight was more
likely to be “identified” in crimes against the state
Selective references
Cucu, I. and D. Danila. (2005). "ISTORIA TRAGICA A PSIHIATRIEI
ROMANESTI IN PERIOADA COMUNISMULUI."
Benedict, P. K. and I. Jacks (1954). "Mental illness in primitive societies."
Psychiatry 17(4): 377-389.
Dongoroz, V. (1937). "Codul Penal al lui Carol al II-lea Adnotat." București:
Editura Socec.
Decret 12(1965). Decret privind îngrijirea medicală a bolnavilor mintali
periculoși
This article analyzed the issue of safety measures in the context of
Decree 12/1965 and the new Penal Code, with an emphasis on forensic
psychiatry reports. To this purpose was presented a statistic from a
correctional mental health hospital (closed circuit) from 1966-1967,
period in which were admitted 282 patients, mostly for manslaughter,
attempted manslaughter and aggressiveness. However, 50 patients were
admitted for political crimes, and 25 – for illegal border crossing. Most
patients had schizophrenia (63 cases), paranoid schizophrenia (44
cases), epilepsy (29 cases) and paranoid syndrome (25 cases).
What is interesting in this statistics is the high prevalence of paranoid
schizophrenia. Among the manslaughter cases, 56 were committed by
schizophrenia patients, and from the 50 political crimes, 41 were
committed by subjected with paranoid syndromes, paranoid psychosis or
paranoid psychopathy, and another 5 by patients with simple
schizophrenia.
Another statistic presented in this article analyzed the removal of safety
measures. From 26 instances in which the patients were released, 10
were admitted for manslaughter or aggressiveness, and only 3 for
political crimes.
Conclusions
Patients convicted for crimes against the state were more often
diagnosed with schizophrenia (especially the paranoid type), were
considered decisionally incompetent, and were admitted
involuntarely in correctional mental health institutions.
Even if we were not able to analyze raw data, the trends are obvious,
and suggest a collaboration of the forensic psychiatry institutions with
the judicial system to institutionalize persons that were considered
enemies of the communist political system.

Copyright © 2017. 1. Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania; 2. Galați University of Medicine, Galati, Romania
Correspondence to: sorin.hostiuc@umfcd.ro