Depression and criminality.

The delinquency of the depressed numerically only plays an unimportant role. The 'extended suicide' is regarded as the most typical and simultaneously most tragic delict. Almost exclusively this concerns severely depressed young mothers of 30 to 40 years of age, who in a delusional frame of mind include their children in their suicide, in order to prevent them from a presumably unavoidable disaster. Suicidality and aggressivity are intimately related phenomena, which should be treated in a forensic-psychiatric manner. Criminal acts, such as sexual and property delicts arising from an acting out of inner tension, may occur in anxiety or manic-depressive states of a mixed character. Although as a whole infrequent, the criminogenous importance of especially milder forms of depression is obviously often overlooked.