Psychiatry and prison: a parallel history

Psychiatry and prison have a complex parallel history. It starts at the end of eighteenth century with a radical distinction between crime and mental illness. Since that time, one can see an evolution more and more clearly. Insanity and criminality are brought together in a same study by criminological theories (phrenology, criminal anthropology...). Despite the fact that the criticism of asylums and prisons has taken an unexpected level during the twentieth century, the more recent evolution in France is to punish the criminal mentally defective. It's hard to for see the future of this gradual acculturation. (C) 2004 Elsevier SAS. Tous droits reserves.