Lawyers defending inner-city criminals are honing a new and startling psychiatric defense: that their clients suffer from an "urban psychosis" that reduces their responsibility for their crimes.
The lawyers argue that day-to-day urban life can induce post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition courts already have recognized in Vietnam veterans, rape victims and battered spouses and children. Some defense lawyers are asking courts to take this condition into account when they determine the guilt and punishment of inner-city residents.
4/27/93
The Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1993:
