THE 
Legislative Provisions for Insane Criminals in 
Massachusetts 
BY 
ARTHUR H. HARRINGTON, M.D. 
Medical Director of the State Asylum for Insane Criminals, at 
State Farm, Bridgewater, Mass. 
Reprinted from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 
of November 14, 1895 
BOSTON 
DAMRELL & UPHAM, PUBLISHERS 
283 Washington Street 
1895 S. J. PARKHILL 4 CO., PRINTERS 
BOSTON THE LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS FOR INSANE 
CRIMINALS IN MASSACHUSETTS.1 
BY ARTHUR H. HARRINGTON, M.D., 
Medical Director of the State Asylumfor~fnsane Criminals, Bridge- 
water, Mass. 
If we study the legislation of the State of Massa- 
chusetts from an early period which makes provision 
for the insane, we shall find at quite an early date, as 
early in fact as 1816, a statute providing for the 
custody of certain persons belonging to the class called 
the "criminal insane." This statute provided that 
if persons, while being held for crimes and offences, 
were found to be dangerously insane, they should be 
committed by the legal authority " to prison." This 
law stood upon the Statute Book until 1832, the ob- 
ject of it being apparently to merely' protect the 
community against certain dangerously insane persons. 
The question of medical treatment does not appear 
to have entered to any extent into the care of such 
persons, but it must be remembered that previous to 
1834, the prisons and gaols were the common re- 
ceptacles for the insane as well as criminals, and the 
condition of the insane criminal may have been no 
worse than that of the insane in general who became 
public charges. 
In the year 1832, an act was passed authorizing the 
commitment of the persons designated in the act of 
1816 to the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, as 
soon as it should be opened. And soon afterwards 
provisions were made for the commitment of all penal 
cases becoming insane, to the State Lunatic Hospital. 
The year 1832, then, may be regarded as marking 
1 Read before the New England Psychological Society, September 
24, 1895. 2 
the beginning of special legislative acts which have 
had in view the care and the cure of the insane of the 
convict and criminal class. 
The provisions of these acts have placed the con- 
vict and criminal insane on an equal footing with all 
other insane persons who are cared for at the public 
expense, as far as affording them conditions which 
would contribute in the highest degree to their care or 
to the amelioration or cure of their mental disease. 
All of these provisions reveal a sentiment the equity 
of which no one will deny. The insane person, no 
matter what his moral status or antecedents or how 
he may be regarded by the light of the law, whether 
he is innocent of crime, or a convicted felon, is one 
sick and suffering, and the common sentiment of our 
time dictates that all such are equally entitled to care, 
to measures of relief or to conditions which will pro- 
mote recovery from mental disease. Massachusetts 
has for many years responded fully to this sentiment; 
but she has done so by bringing the insane of all 
classes, without regard to their moral status, their 
antecedents, or their position before the law, together 
in the wards of our State hospitals. In no other way 
was it regarded as practicable by the State to give the 
insane of the criminal class the care which persons 
mentally diseased ought to have. 
But actual experience has demonstrated, both from 
the material and moral standpoint, the disadvantage 
and the impropriety of treating under one roof the 
criminal and non-criminal insane. Abundant testi- 
mony to this effect is to be found in hospital reports. 
The presence of criminals serves in a great measure 
to retard the diminution of the use of restraint of 
all kinds. Windows, bars, locks and doors must be 
so constructed as to foil ingenious attempts at escape. 
The comfort and liberty of innocent persons has often 3 
to be sacrificed for the sake of security, when there 
are criminals upon our wards who are still under 
sentence. 
The injustice as well as the impropriety of this 
system, it seems to me, could not fail to force itself 
upon the minds of all who have seen upon the wards 
of our State hospitals those whose lives have been 
vicious and criminal, side by side with innocence, with 
respectability, and with those who have been honored 
citizens in our midst. 
But we have only to go outside the statutes, to 
public documents in which questions relating to the 
insane are discussed, to find that for many years there 
has been a strong sentiment existing in Massachusetts, 
which has been at times an active one and which has 
called emphatically for some legislation which would re- 
lieve the hospitals of the convict and criminal class, and 
at the same time afford this class the same care and 
treatment for mental disease which they ought to re- 
ceive and which they have received in the State hos- 
pitals. We shall see in what follows how this senti- 
ment and this demand has been met by the State. 
In the year 1864 an appropriation was asked of the 
Legislature to establish on the lands of the Tewks- 
bury Almshouse an asylum for chronic and harmless 
insane. This was obtained. At the same time the 
advocates of an establishment for the insane of the 
criminal class urged an additional appropriation for 
the establishment of a receptacle for insane criminals 
at the same place and in connection with the chronic 
asylum. This plan met with great opposition from 
the projectors of the chronic asylum. Not that they 
were opposed to some provisions which should relieve 
the hospitals of the insane criminals, as far as I have 
learned, but that they were opposed to the plan for 
connecting it with the asylum for chronic insane at 4 
Tewksbury* However, a bill was passed authorizing 
an additional appropriation for the establishment of 
the said receptacle in connection with the asylum at 
Tewksbury, but the opponents of this measure appear 
to have done more effectual work after the passage 
of the act than before, for the asylum for chronic in- 
sane at Tewksbury was established, that for insane 
criminals was not. I am informed that two years were 
suffered to elapse without drawing upon the appro- 
priation for the Receptacle for Insane Criminals; 
and according to the State law the act, in consequence, 
became void. And thus ended this bit of negative 
legislation. I cite this in order to show that we thus 
have on record more than thirty years ago the ex- 
istence of the sentiment in Massachusetts which 
demanded the separation of the criminal and the non- 
criminal insane. 
From time to time since 1864, the subject of 
separate provision for the criminal insane has been re- 
curring, and has been forcibly presented to the State 
on many occasions. At one time " the impropriety 
and injustice" of thus associating the criminal and 
the innocent was brought to the notice of the Gov- 
ernor and Council. At one time the State Board of 
Lunacy and Charity were requested by the Legislature 
to make a report upon the subject. The Board of 
Lunacy, as well as the managers of the hospitals, had 
plans to propose; but when the subject came to the 
point of legislation, there were so many conflicting 
opinions that nothing could be accomplished, and the 
whole matter was allowed to drift. 
These matters to which I have merely made refer- 
ence bring us down to about the year 1886. I 
wish now to enter briefly upon a period extending from 
1886 down to the present day, which in relation to our 
subject, might be called the Period of Evolution at the 5 
State Farm - of an institution which at the last ses- 
sion of the Legislature received the official name of 
" State Asylum for Insane Criminals." I wish to give 
you briefly the history of this period, for in no other 
way I think, can I bring to your minds so clear a com- 
prehension of the present status of this asylum, of 
what has been accomplished in legislation the past 
year, and in how far there was a falling off in what 
was actually accomplished from the original purpose and 
desire. The facts from which I gather this history are 
found in reports and public documents, and I am also 
indebted for much information to Mr. H. M. Blackstone, 
the Superintendent of the State Farm. 
If we go back to the year 1886, we shall find that 
the institution at Bridgewater, known as the Bridge- 
water Workhouse (the name has since been changed 
by legislative enactment to " State Farm"), comprised 
two departments : first, a workhouse department, to 
which were committed persons found guilty of vagrancy 
and common drunkenness, and to which they were sen- 
tenced for short terms usually ; and, second, an alms- 
house department. These two departments still exist. 
The number of the inmates, both of the workhouse 
and almshouse departments, varied greatly at differ- 
ent seasons of the year. In the winter months the 
number present would crowd the capacity of the insti- 
tution, while during the summer months the number 
would reach low-water mark. The institution pos- 
sessed a large farm, which with plenty of labor could 
be made very productive, but just at the season when 
labor was wanted the most, the able-bodied prisoners 
and paupers were away upon their " annual vacations," 
and would not return till fall or winter set in. 
In casting about for some remedy for this condition 
the management of the institution observed that the 
State lunatic hospitals were complaining of over- 6 
crowding and its attendant disadvantages. The thought 
suggested itself that if authority could be obtained to 
make provision for some of the chronic and harmless 
insane at the State Farm, that the State hospitals 
would be willing to give up some of their numbers of 
the chronic and harmless class. It was expected that 
if this could be done, the State Farm would thus ob- 
tain one class of inmates whose numbers would remain 
nearly constant, who might be employed upon the 
farm advantageously to themselves, and besides reliev- 
ing the hospitals to some extent of their numbers and 
giving to the State Farm a class whose labor could be 
profitably utilized, they could in addition to all this 
be supported at considerably less cost than in the large 
hospitals. 
This plan was so feasible and the arguments so con- 
clusive that the Legislature readily authorized the erec- 
tion at the State Farm at Bridgewater (Chap. 219 of 
the Acts of 1886) of buildings not to exceed in cost 
$50,000, and to accommodate not less than 125 chronic 
insane men of the pauper and harmless class. Work 
was begun at once. The buildings were completed 
the following year, and by the 1st of October, 1887, 
there had been transferred thereto 130 patients of the 
quiet and harmless class. The buildings which were 
built within the appropriation, and which were found 
capable of accommodating 150 patients, were admir- 
ably adapted for just the purpose for which they were 
intended, namely, the care of the chronic and harm- 
less insane; and as far as this class were concerned, 
the reports show that the " claims and predictions of 
the advocates of this movement were fully realized." 
But within one or two years of the first transfer to 
this asylum the management began to perceive that 
the interests of the State hospitals were being con- 
sulted in a greater degree, in the class of persons 7 
transferred, than had been anticipated by the State 
Farm people; for among the persons transferred be- 
gan to come quite a large number of the criminal 
class. Thus far none of them could be said to be 
otherwise than harmless, but they were of a different 
stamp than had been looked for. They did not seem 
to evince that interest in farming which it was hoped they 
would; but, on the contrary, they seemed much more 
anxious to exhibit their skill as " fence-jumpers " and 
"lock-pickers," as I learn from one of the reports, 
than they did as agriculturists. 
This contingency was one that had not been pro- 
vided for in the plan of the buildings constructed, but 
it became necessary to provide for it at once, by some 
additional construction which would be more secure 
against escapes; but no sooner were the me^ns to do 
this asked of the Legislature, than the authorities of 
State hospitals came forward, and urged strongly that 
if further appropriations were made for buildings for 
the insane at Bridgewater, that the transfers thereto 
should hereafter be wholly from the convict and crimi- 
nal class, or those who were criminal or vicious in 
their tendencies. The appropriation for a stronger 
building was obtained, but the statute authorizing it 
(Chap. 89 of the Acts of 1888) assumed this form, 
" that there be allowed and paid out of the treasury of 
the Commonwealth a sum not exceeding $60,000 for 
the purpose of erecting and furnishing strong build- 
ings for insane male criminals, providing for not less 
than 100 patients." This building was completed and 
occupied in the fall of 1890, making the capacity of the 
department for the insane 250. 
The reports of the State Farm from this time on, 
contain frequent reference to the changing character 
of the inmates of the asylum. 1 will quote from the 
superintendent's report of 1892: "The pauper and 8 
harmless class of inmates with which this asylum first 
started, are fast disappearing. ... It will be readily 
seen that very soon the entire number will be con- 
victs and criminals. Of the present number (230), 
there are 127 convicts from the State Prison and 
houses of correction. The northwest wing, contain- 
ing fifty strong rooms, is all the sufficiently strong ac- 
commodation we have for safe care and keeping of 
this dangerous class of men. The transfers to the 
asylum, are all now from the class, who almost with- 
out exception, should have a single strong room. To 
undertake their care in the older asylum buildings on 
the dormitory plan is positively unsafe and danger- 
ous- escapes will be frequent - and too great hazard 
attends them." This same report asked for an addi- 
tional building containing 75 strong rooms. The 
Legislature saw the necessity for this addition and 
this building is now nearly completed and is calculated 
to raise the capacity to 325. 
One other stage in the development of this institu- 
tion was reached by an act (Chap. 251 of the Acts of 
1894) the important clause of which reads, " that no 
person shall be hereafter transferred thereto [meaning 
the lunatic wards of the State Farm] from a State 
lunatic hospital, except those transferred and com- 
mitted to said hospitals from the State Prison, the 
Massachusetts Reformatory, the jails and the houses 
of correction of the several counties and the House of 
Industry of the City of Boston." 
This act gave by statute law, it will be seen, a dis- 
tinct class, namely, convicts and criminals, and those 
alone, to the lunatic wards of the State Farm. 
Thus far we have seen the gradual transition of this 
department of the State Farm from its original plan, 
which contemplated the presence of only 125 insane 
of the pauper and harmless class, to an organized 9 
asylum for the congregation of over 300 of the most 
difficult class of the insane to care for and control. 
The originally lightly constructed buildings, with large 
dormitories and few single rooms, have had added to 
them strong buildings containing single rooms only, 
for the safe-keeping of insane men, who in many in- 
stances have long and even life sentences over them, 
and who sometimes show great ingenuity and persist- 
ency in circumventing and overcoming the means put 
in their way for preventing escape. Among them 
also are men who from their form of insanity are dan- 
gerous. Among them also, are those who respond to 
measures adopted for their improvement or even re- 
covery. 
Much praise is due those who have superintended 
the general management of this asylum and organized 
its details up to the time to which I have now brought 
this history, namely, 1894. But the lay management 
of the State Farm has not been slow in discerning that 
here was a field which was strictly a professional one, 
and desired to be relieved of all responsibility for the 
asylum department, and to place it where it properly 
belonged - on medical shoulders. 
A complete separation of the insane department 
from the workhouse and almshouse departments by 
statute was recommended by the Trustees and Super- 
intendent in their last report. 
I quote from the Superintendent's report, as follows : 
" Inasmuch as its character [referring to the asylum 
department] has so radically changed, having in fact 
become one of the most difficult class of patients to re- 
strain and manage and requiring expert medical direc- 
tion, it is a serious question whether it should longer 
continue as a ward of the State Farm or be separated 
by statute law and managed distinctly as an independ- 
ent department or institution." I also quote from the 10 
Trustees' report, as follows: " After a careful exami- 
nation of the subject by the Trustees, as well as for 
reasons presented by the Superintendent in his report, 
it is deemed important and necessary that the legisla- 
tive authority be given for the entire separation of the 
management of the insane from the other departments 
of the institution." During the legislative session of 
1895 this matter was brought before the Joint Com- 
mittee on Charitable Institutions in detailed form. 
The plan most desired by the Trustees and local 
management was an entire sundering of the depart- 
ment for the-insane from the rest of the institution 
under a separate Board of Trustees. 
The plan of separation, however, met with decided 
opposition by the Legislative Committee, the main ob- 
jections focusing around the policy which is opposed 
to the multiplication of institutions in Massachusetts. 
It was evident that there was no disposition on the 
part of the Committee to look favorably upon any 
measure which had as its basis a separation by statute 
law of the asylum from the rest of the institution. 
But with a view to relieving the lay-superintendency, 
the management still insisted that there should be 
some statutory enactment recognizing the professional 
factor in the conduct of the asylum. 
A bill was finally drawn up which was a result of 
conference between the Legislative Committee, those 
representing the interests of the State lunatic hospitals, 
and those representing the interests of the State Farm. 
[I will say here that the work of formulating this 
bill was done by the Hon. Edwin B. Harvey, M.D., 
Chairman of the Committee on Public Charitable 
Institutions of the legislative session of 1895; by 
the Hon. Francis C. Lowell, Trustee of the Worces- 
ter Lunatic Hospital, and member of the Judiciary 
Committee of the legislative session of 1895; by Mr. 11 
H. M. Blackstone, Superintendent of the State Farm, 
and others.J 
This bill received the recommendation of the Joint 
Committee on Public Charitable Institutions; it 
passed the Legislature without opposition, and became 
a law in June, 1895. 
The provisions of this act, which follows, may be 
divided, first, into those which are of local interest and 
importance, and, second, into those which are of gen- 
eral interest and of vital importance to the State luna- 
tic hospitals. 
Chapter 390 of the Acts of 1895. 
An Act to establish an Asylum for Insane Criminals at 
Bridgewater, and to provide for and regulate commitments 
and removals to the same, as follows : 
Section 1. So much of the Hospital and Almshouse 
Departments of the State Farm at Bridgewater as was es- 
tablished for the care and maintenance of insane men 
under the provisions of Chap. 219 of the Acts of the year 
1886, Chap. 89 of the Resolves of 1888, and Chap. 48 of 
the Resolves of 1893, shall hereafter be known and de- 
signated- the State Asylum for Insane Criminals. 
Sect. 2. The Superintendent of the State Farm, sub- 
ject to the approval of the Trustees, shall appoint a phy- 
sician as medical director of the said Asylum, and shall 
fix his salary. Said director shall have the care and 
custody of the inmates of the Asylum, and shall govern the 
same in accordance with the rules and regulations ap- 
proved by the Trustees. 
Sect. 3. The insane male persons mentioned in Sect. 
10 (insane convicts in the State Prison or Reformatory 
Prison), Sect. 12 (insane convicts in a house of correction 
or prison other than the State Prison or Reformatory 
Prison), and Sect. 14 (insane persons held in any jail for 
trial or for sentence, except for a capital crime), of Chap. 
222 of the Public Statutes, and Chap. 320 of the Acts and 
Resolves of the year 1885 (any insane prisoner confined in 
the Massachusetts Reformatory), shall hereafter be re- 12 
moved to said Asylum for Insane Criminals instead of to a 
State lunatic hospital. 
Sect. 4. The description of insane male persons 
mentioned in Sect. 15 of Chap. 213 of the Public Statutes 
(person held in prison on a charge of having committed 
an indictable offence, but not indicted by the grand jury by 
reason of insanity), and Sect. 16 (indicted person found to 
be insane at time of trial), Sect. 19 (person acquitted by 
reason of insanity), and Sect. 20 (person indicted for 
murder or manslaughter acquitted by reason of insanity), 
of Chap. 214 of the Public Statutes, may be hereafter com- 
mitted or removed to the Asylum for Insane Criminals in- 
stead of to a State lunatic hospital as therein provided 
when in the opinion of the court said insane persons are 
criminals or have been vicious in their lives. 
Sect. 5. The State Board of Lunacy and Charity is 
hereby authorized to transfer to and from the State lunatic 
hospitals and the Asylum for Insane Criminals any of the 
description of persons mentioned in this Act, whenever in 
its judgment such transfer will insure a better classification 
of insane criminals. 
Sect. 6. The insane persons heretofore transferred to 
said Hospital and Almshouse Departments and held therein 
in accordance with existing law, shall be held in said 
Asylum as though removed thereto under the provisions of 
this Act, and the State Board of Lunacy and Charity may 
hereafter transfer and commit thereto any inmate of a 
State Lunatic Hospital, of the Worcester Insane Asylum 
or of the State Farm (Prison or Almshouse Department) 
of the description of persons mentioned in Chap. 251, of the 
Acts of the year 1894 (persons committed from the State 
Prison, the Massachusetts Reformatory, the jails and houses 
of correction of the several counties, and the House of In- 
dustry of the City of Boston) ; and the provisions con- 
tained in Sect. 2 of said Chapter relative to the return of 
such persons to the prison or other (penal) institution, to 
which they were originally committed, shall apply to all 
persons removed to the Asylum for Insane Criminals under 
the provisions of this Act. 
Sect. 7. Sect. 21 of Chap. 214 of the Public Statutes 
is hereby amended by inserting after the word " Hospital," 13 
in the first line of said section, the words, " or to the State 
Asylum for Insane Criminals," so that said section will 
read when amended, " any person committed to a State 
Lunatic Hospital or to the State Asylum for Insane 
Criminals under the preceding section (persons found in- 
sane and committed after indictment for murder or man- 
slaughter) may be discharged therefrom by the Governor, 
by and with the advice and consent of the Council, when 
he is satisfied after a hearing of the matter that such person 
may be discharged without danger to others." 
The radical feature of this act is that portion of it 
which provides for the commitment of the insane 
criminals directly to this asylum instead of to the 
State lunatic hospitals as heretofore. Also, certain of 
the so-called "court cases," which include persons 
arrested for crime, but found to be insane, will be 
committed directly to this asylum if the court deter- 
mines that they " are criminals or have been vicious 
in their lives." 
It is not claimed that this is a perfect bill in all re- 
spects. It was framed to meet the exigencies of the 
case, and we hope the future will remedy its faults. 
Thus I think I have shown you clearly the succes- 
sive steps by which this department of the State Farm 
has undergone a complete transition. The original 
plan of providing for a few chronic and harmless in- 
sane having gradually given way to the establishment 
of an asylum, the function of which is to be the cus- 
tody and treatment of the insane criminals of the 
State. You have seen wherein there has been a fail- 
ure to establish this asylum upon the independent 
basis recommended by the Trustees. There has been 
gained, however, to a considerable degree a needed 
recognition of the professional element in its manage- 
ment ; but the greatest gain, I think you will all 
agree, is the relieving of the State hospitals of the 
presence of all the convict, and some of the criminal 14 
insane or so-called "court cases." This is a measure, it 
must be remembered, which an effort has been making 
to accomplish for thirty years. The State also by this 
provision avoids the expensive and roundabout way 
by which these cases have heretofore reached the asy- 
lum at the State Farm, namely, through the State 
hospitals. 
This, then, is an account of the way up to the pres- 
ent time in which Massachusetts has met the demand 
for separate provision for her insane criminals; but 
the question now arises in the minds of those thor- 
oughly acquainted with all the conditions, whether as 
regards the future there has been a complete solution 
of the problem. A few years ago the State Board of 
Lunacy and Charity, soon after the transfers to this 
asylum began to be of the criminal class, stated in 
their report as follows : " The question of a separate 
criminal asylum so long agitated has thus been practi- 
cally settled, at no great cost to the State, and to the 
relief of all concerned." But even now, with what 
has been accomplished since these words were written, 
it seems to me that Massachusetts should be slow to 
congratulate herself that she has disposed of all the 
questions relating to the care of her insane criminals. 
At present this asylum is one department of a large 
institution, the other departments of which differ 
widely from it; but on account of this relationship the 
asylum must necessarily be dependent upon general 
conditions which govern the institution as a whole, 
and in this particular case, moreover, the asylum is 
necessarily subject to general conditions which govern 
two State institutions, namely, the Tewksbury Alms- 
house and the State Farm - both being mauaged by 
the same board of Trustees. The practical result of 
such relationship will be, I think, with departments 
differing widely in their nature and needs, that one or 15 
the other may suffer, because first, general and rela- 
tive conditions have to be considered. 
For these reasons, then, Massachusetts, which has 
allowed the question of the separate care of her insane 
criminals to drift for many years and to almost take 
care of itself, may yet be brought face to face with 
conditions and problems which cannot be properly 
settled on any narrow basis. I think it is a question 
whether the problem can be properly solved short of 
establishing an institution upon a separate site, and in 
buildings planned and adapted from the beginning for 
the care, treatment, and custody of the insane criminals 
of the State. 
Note.- At the meeting of the New England Psychological 
Society, September 24, 1895, at which this paper was read, the 
following resolution was passed: 
" That it is the sense of this meeting that the State Asylum 
for Insane Criminals should be separated from the other de- 
partments of the State Farm, and placed under a special Board 
of Trustees." THE BOSTON 
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