Editing Phrenology (section)

=== Criminology ===
Phrenology was one of the first{{clarify|date=August 2021}} to bring about the idea of rehabilitation of criminals instead of vindictive punishments that would not stop criminals, only with the reorganizing a disorganized brain would bring about change.{{sfn|Lyons|2009|pp=79–80}} Voisin believed along with others the accuracy of phrenology in diagnosing criminal tendencies. Diagnosis could point to the type of offender, the insane, an idiot or brute, and by knowing this an appropriate course of action could be taken.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=74}} A strict system of reward and punishment, hard work and religious instruction, was thought to be able to correct those who had been abandoned and neglected with little education and moral ground works. Those who were considered intellectually disabled could be put to work and housed collectively while only criminals of intellect and vicious intent needed to be confined and isolated.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=77}} Phrenology also advocated variable prison sentences, the idea being that those who were only defective in education and lacking in morals would soon be released while those who were "mentally deficient" could be watched and the truly abhorrent criminals would never be released.{{sfn|Parssinen|1974|p=6}}<ref>{{cite journal |title=Punishing Criminals |journal=Phrenological Journal |date=March 1871 |volume=LII |series=Num 3 |issue=Whole Number 386 |pages=200–204}}</ref>{{sfn|Lyons|2009|p=80}} For other patients phrenology could help redirect impulses, one homicidal individual became a butcher to control his impulses, while another became a [[military chaplain]] so he could witness killings.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=76}} Phrenology also provided reformist arguments for the lunatic asylums of the Victorian era. [[John Conolly]], a physician interested in psychological aspects of disease, used phrenology on his patients in an attempt to use it as a diagnostic tool. While the success of this approach is debatable, Conolly, through phrenology, introduced a more humane way of dealing with the mentally ill.{{sfn|McGrew|1985|p=261}} The first phrenological testimony in a court of law was solicited by American lawyer [[John Neal]] in [[Portland, Maine]], in 1834.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Courtney E. |date=2021 |title=An Organ of Murder: Crime, Violence, and Phrenology in Nineteenth-Century America |location=New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |pages=55, 191n4 |isbn=978-1978813069}}</ref> Neal argued unsuccessfully that the jury should take leniency on his client because the part of his brain associated with violent behavior was inflamed.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Holtzman |first=Geoffrey S. |date=December 16, 2015 |title=When Phrenology Was Used in Court: Lessons in Neuroscience from the 1834 Trial of a 9-year-old |url=https://slate.com/technology/2015/12/how-phrenology-was-used-in-the-1834-trial-of-9-year-old-major-mitchell.html |magazine=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |location=New York |access-date=April 4, 2021 |archive-date=May 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516205433/https://slate.com/technology/2015/12/how-phrenology-was-used-in-the-1834-trial-of-9-year-old-major-mitchell.html |url-status=live }}</ref>