THE RECOGNITION OF PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER IN BRITISH HONDURAS

The children receive lessons in conduct from their text books, religion classes, and from the reaction of school personnel to their deportment. But these are not generally reinforced at home and probably tend to become regarded as is most of what is learned at school--repetitious behavior which is not clearly related to any other aspect of their lives. For although most primary teachers in British Honduras are local men and women who are locally trained, they are frequently of different ethnic affiliations than their students and often speak a different language. All instruction in British Honduras is supposed to be in Standard English as opposed to Creole, Carib, or Spanish, yet few adults and even fewer children in the country speak Standard English and most do not understand it very well. Teachers, of course, resort to the vernacular languages to make some points when theirs is the same as the students, but unless Spanish, Indian and Carib children understand Creole, or their teachers speak their own languages, the students will spend their first few years in school learning very little. They are taught to write, work with figures, and to read, but it is years before they can do so with any facility, and then they are obviously the products. of a rote-learning system. While it is possible to teach the basic skills of literacy in this fashion, it is an unproductive method for teaching morals and manners, a declared purpose of the primary school system which is administered by the government in cooperation with church groups, primarily the Roman Catholic Church.

Virtually all British Hondurans are exposed to formal religious teaching as children, and they have moral ideals which roughly approximate the Judeo-Christian ethic. Yet these moral ideals do not seem to have the force of behavioral imperatives even though there is a high degree of consensus about them. These teachings are too far removed from the social realities of much of the population to be considered as directives or goals. They are rather evaluative standards applied to others and occasionally one's self in the way that a garment is sewn and then tried on to fit. If the behavior fits the ethic, that is a desirable condition. If it does not, then perhaps there can be a few alterations; or more likely, one will hope for better results the next time.

In the same way that British Hondurans tend to find fault with the educational system, they enjoy pointing out the failings of their leaders, prominent citizens, and successful businessmen. As any person becomes noted for political, professional, or commercial achievement, there will be a great deal of discussion about his past and present wrong-doings. Illegal business deals, illicit romantic affairs, incidents of public drunkenness, accusations of theft and bribery, evasion of various taxes, scandals involving relatives and friends--all of these will be dredged up and become common "knowledge. " There are no public figures in British Honduras with unblemished records, if one would believe local gossip. And most people do. One of the many effects which this kind of name-calling and scandal-mongering has is to convince people that serious misconduct is not an obstacle to success in life. Rather it seems a prerequisite to it. No one really believes that an honest merchant will be successful or that a person unwilling to accept gratuities in return for 'favors' will ever make much of himself. And the seeming proof of this is the present situation, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children do not grow up with such ideals as presented by American folk tales about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Rather they are told about various entrepreneurial types who illegally cornered a valuable commodity at a low price and sold it at a high one, or the man who was supposed to dispose of the old currency by burning but saved it himself instead. Men who find large sums of money and return it are ridiculed as fools as is anyone who prefers a clear conscience to success. British Hondurans, as a group, tend to feel that they cannot afford high moral standards and thus justify their perceived failing in this area in those terms. For the present, it will suffice to note that there is a dearth of good examples in British Honduras in the sense of people who are praised and acclaimed for their inflexible views on the subjects of right and wrong.

Deviant Careers
Linked to this is the number of available professions in the country which involve deviant behavior. Only theft and prostitution, both manifestly frowned upon and illegal as well, will be discussed. Theft is a profession, full- and part-time, in British Honduras although it is most extensively practiced in Belize City. Favored targets are tourists, expatriates, and the wealthy merchant class although any person with something valuable is a possibility. Thieves break into private homes, warehouses, automobiles, and places of business at any hour of the day or night. They also shoplift, snatch purses, steal from employers, and tear jewelry off the persons of women and children on the street. They do not generally "mug" people and during my stay there I heard of only one robbery accompanied by beating of the victim. Thieves generally steal for a livelihood rather than to possess the objects which they steal, consequently they all steal about the same things--items which have a ready market. These are radios, tape recorders and tapes, electric fans, jewelry of any kind, cameras, liquor, imported food, clothing, and truck and automobile parts. These items are either sold through a "fence" who specializes in such work or thieves sell the goods themselves. They do not generally steal cash unless they find it. There has been only one bank robbery in the country. It occurred in 1972 and the history making thief was apprehended within hours as, of course, he was recognized by someone while running away from the bank. There are several important characteristics of this profession. Primarily luxury goods are stolen and they are stolen from people who can usually afford to replace them. These goods are generally sold to ordinary Belizeans. The liquor is sold to bars, the food to grocery stores, and the other items to whoever has money to buy. As both thieves and their front men want to sell the goods as quickly as possible, the prices are extraordinarily cheap, usually about 25% of the item's retail value.

Most people in Belize know who the thieves are. A person who has no steady job but often has a costly item to sell is conspicuous in a city the size of Belize. Thieves are occasionally apprehended and this gives them even more publicity. But the people from whom the thieves steal do not know them, and this is how they are able to operate. They walk around the business districts and better neighborhoods waiting for an opportunity; seldom do they make elaborate plans. These thieves provide for a sort of redistribution of wealth which may serve a more positive function than it first appears. Their victims are seldom poor people, for obvious reasons. Rather it is these poor people who benefit from their activities. An electric fan is a fine thing to have in Belize, especially if one lives 'back of town' and not in the upper-class areas where there is always a breeze anyway. Radios are practically necessities for entertainment when one cannot afford the motion pictures or a week-end outing. And all Belizeans are fond of jewelry. Thus theft, while it is undesirable in the long run, does have short-term benefits. Although many tourists never come back and the expatriate upper-class has a generally poor opinion of the integrity of many Belizeans, sentiment among average people is that theft will inevitably occur and they do not object to being able to benefit from it occasionally. They feel that it is an impersonal kind of theft and, in some cases, not really theft at all. Employers learn to tolerate a certain amount of theft in their establishments, and indeed many businesses are run in such a way as to make it impossible to control pilfering. Clearly it is not thought to be a particularly heinous crime. Many British Hondurans declare that they would never steal a penny and they mean it. For most persons 'stealing' would be sneaking into the house of a friend or relative and taking cash--and it would only be stealing then if the person did not owe the thief money. Any other means of acquiring a person's property is not exactly stealing. Thus there is a tacit acceptance of all kinds of theft which are thought to be almost acceptable behavior by many persons--especially those who eventually possess the goods.

Prostitution too is present in British Honduras and many of these women are from the neighboring republics, brought especially for this kind of employment. Foreign prostitutes usually live in 'hotels' featuring expensive drinks and accommodations which are actually thinly disguised brothels. Although prostitution is not legal in British Honduras, these establishments are open to the public and conduct their business flagrantly. There are occasional public expressions of outrage in speeches, newspapers, and the like but these lucrative enterprises operate with apparent governmental and public assent. Few local girls live in these places, as they usually work the streets and ordinary bars. Local girls do not command the same high price as the imported prostitutes but they have correspondingly lower living expenses. The foreign women remain outside of society and are in fact almost totally isolated from ordinary people by living in the hotels. Yet British Honduran women and girls who turn to prostitution as a means of earning money live in the same neighborhoods as other people and frequently with relatives. They are not in any way ostracized by the general society but they do forfeit some rights which "honest" women enjoy. Many of them are girls who have borne a child out of wedlock and have drifted into the profession through casual relations with men who reward them materially for their company. Once it becomes known that they have accepted gifts as payments for their favors, they are sought out by other men and gradually become established as known prostitutes in the community. Others are introduced into the career by older men and women who recruit young girls for purposes of prostitution and profit from their activities. While it could be said that no woman is every really forced by her situation into prostitution, the profession has definite benefits as it is viewed locally. Prostitutes are widely admired for their stylish and lavish wardrobes, freedom of movement, and their 'powers' over men. They are also thought to have sizable incomes and good opportunities for meeting foreigners who often marry them and take them to live abroad. Although they are referred to as 'bad women, ' they are still socially accepted by most of their relatives and neighbors, and even their children do not suffer from a grave stigma. People simply do not fault the child for its mother's conduct, especially if the child does not grow up with its mother. Prostitutes, although their behavior is universally regarded as immoral and detrimental to themselves, are more than tolerated. They in fact enjoy privileges which other women in the society with more regular modes of employment never experience. They frequent the most prestigious bars, hotels, and restaurants. They mingle with some of the wealthiest people in the country and frequently enjoy trips abroad. The desire of a woman to avail herself of this kind of life which is almost totally unobtainable for an average British Honduran woman is more than understandable. It is forgivable, especially if the girl is from a poor background. Moralistic criticism is almost always directed toward the foreign 'whores' and little is said about the activities of local girls. This kind of deviant behavior is tolerated by the community and often ignored unless the effects of it are felt personally. There will then be outbursts in which feelings of hate, jealousy, and extreme disapproval are aired, but these feelings are normally controlled.

The above activities are examples of behavior which is proscribed by local statutes and thought to be undesirable by the populace in general. Yet as full-time occupations they flourish and involve many people in deviant roles rather than merely deviant behavior. In both, the principle motives which lead persons into these areas are economic. They are seeking to provide themselves and/or their dependents with a larger and more secure income than would be generated by the majority of regular jobs in the country. Each successful practitioner in these fields of endeavor reinforces the already present idea that one does not have to conform to normative moral expectations in order to have a prosperous life with normal social acceptance as well. In other words, just as in childhood certain punishment was not the consequence of forbidden or wrong actions, ;. so in adult life one may violate normal rules of behavior without swift and sure censure from society. Rather, the lack of concerted societal action toward violators of formally instituted norms encourages a laissez-faire attitude in both the general populace and the enforcers of the legal limits of behavior which tends to blur the distinctions between acceptable and deviant behavior. Thus, rather than low consensus, there is conceptual confusion about the nature of proper behavior.

Concepts of Responsibility
Certain beliefs which British Hondurans share about personality also influence the amount of deviant behavior and measures to control it. They are strongly fatalistic and see their lives as being greatly determined by 'fate,' 'luck,' 'destiny,' and other predetermining kinds of forces. They envision themselves as being acted upon by circumstances they cannot control, understand, or change. Each personal history to them is the sum of immutable events and unavoidable circumstances which have made the person what he is. British Hondurans feel that being born into a poor family is a reason for failure to achieve later in life. This is viewed as an almost insurmountable obstacle as it usually means lack of formal education, no useful social contacts, and insufficient opportunity in one's younger years to learn a trade. Related to this idea of non-control over one's fate is the notion of unchangeable personal characteristics. They feel that each person is born with a definite personality which will become evident as the child matures and that little can be done to change a person at any stage of life. Thus when parents or guardians notice that a child is selfish, gossipy, dishonest, sulky, bad-minded, cruel, etc. they will comment with regret on its character but there will be no concerted effort to modify it. They will criticize the child and perhaps beat it occasionally for its failings, but they will not think that they themselves could influence its development in any other way than that direction which it seems to be taking. Constructive corrective discipline is not part of parental behavior when the child is young, and even less when it is older. When a boy or girl reaches the early teens and is old enough to find itself in serious trouble for theft, sexual misconduct, fighting, etc., most people would despair of being able to control the young person. There is a juvenile corrective facility in Belize City but it receives only males and is not a commonly sought remedy for the situation. If the young incorrigible reaches fifteen or sixteen years and still behaves very badly, he or she will be evicted from the household. While this is a definite negative reaction to the teenager's deviant behavior it is not a particularly helpful or corrective one. This puts the burden of discipline on the whole society and, as will be indicated, collective discipline is not always forthcoming.

Usually by this time the deviant person himself rationalizes his behavior to the point where he does not feel responsible for it and views individual or concerted negative sanctions toward him as unfair or unjust. He will place the locus of blame on his background, recent misfortunes, uncontrollable temper, bad companions, or other mitigating circumstances. He or she will feel plagued by bad luck and cite evidence testifying to a whole career of misfortunes caused by outside influence. If the acts are performed while crazy, drunk, high on marijuana, or during a fit of anger or rage, there will be a general acceptance of the person's inculpability in the matter. Under conditions such as these, persons are not believed to be themselves or in any way in control of their words and actions. Hence the fault lies outside the person and is depersonalized into thin air with vague non-specific entities bearing the brunt of society's displeasure. Thus social forces which could bring the lost sheep back into the fold are dissipated rather than mobilized. Deviant behavior is thus more likely to be repeated and become habitual.

Boredom
Another factor should be mentioned in connection with forces which produce deviant behavior and this is boredom. With regard to drinking, marijuana smoking, and sex-related offences, the lack of alternative activity is cited by the people themselves as a cause. Whether in downtown Belize or in villages 'way back of bush, ' British Hondurans feel limited in ways to occupy their spare time. This is not so true with women who have household chores to take up all their waking hours unless they have older daughters, but with men it is perceived so. As mentioned earlier, they do not make any handicrafted items, and when they are manufacturing a piece of furniture or making repairs or additions to a building, they often do the job without attention to finishing details. As many men are not regularly employed, they frequently have whole days and nights as well to fill with some kind of activity. Men and boys gamble for very small stakes with playing cards, coins, etc. They drink and smoke marijuana when they have the funds, but often lack of money and nothing to do go together. They thus frequent bars hoping to find a person to buy them a drink or share some marijuana. In the villages, the situation is more acute as even if one has money to spend, there is little to spend it on except rum. Marijuana will usually be available gratis. In one such village until very recently, adult men could be seen every afternoon and evening playing with marbles and tops.

People who have never spent time in small villages with populations of only a few hundred souls are hardly able to appreciate the extent of the ennui produced. And in British Honduras where people are aware of the existence of motion pictures, pool halls, television, and other general leisure time activities in large cities, this is especially so. They do not have timeless cultural traditions which suggest ways to wile away the hours. Instead they are genuinely at a loss as to what to do with themselves and, as they say locally, 'they turn to mischief. ' They become involved in sexual dalliances with close kin and other forbidden partners. They spy on neighbors and roam the streets and paths in search of other sights. They in short do whatever occurs to them. This of course does not apply to all persons, many of whom read, work, and relax in their homes. Some hunt and fish to relieve the boredom, and there are naturally some who are hardly ever bored. But persons who are inclined to dissatisfaction with their lives and stations in society often have these tendencies aggravated and intensified by long periods of time with only their situations to contemplate. They react sometimes with anti-social or self-destructive behavior and their own later comments point to boredom as a causal factor.

The above qualities of British Honduran society and ideas in their conceptual systems are partly determining factors in the general level of deviant behavior. Other conditions contribute toward the tolerance of it and they will be discussed in the following chapter. The points which have been stressed in this chapter are that British Hondurans, practically from birth, are not given clear guidelines to behavior and that neither their own life experiences nor what they observe around them serves to reinforce what moral and social training they do receive. Just as mothers pick up a baby every time it cries to soothe and rock it, even when they know the baby is crying to be picked up, so do the collective attitudes of society forgive a person for deviant behavior and frequently exempt him from the responsibility for it when his motives are known to be self-advancing.

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR AND ITS EFFECT ON THE RECOGNITION OF PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER, PART II: REINFORCING FACTORS
Although the division of this discussion of deviant behavior into generating factors and reinforcing factors is primarily heuristic, k it is surely defensible to speak of factors which tend to produce it and factors which tend to make it tolerated, even though in some instances the same factors will be involved in both areas of discussion. As in any self-regulating system, which a society must be if it is to persist for more than one generation, the disequilibrium produced by a departure from the norm may either serve to activate a correctional change, or the feedback may produce a more pronounced deviation. In this chapter, it will be demonstrated that, in some measure, the nature of British Honduran social ambience makes social control difficult and serves to protect certain persons from the potentially negative effects of their own deviant behavior. Thus the corrective mechanisms of the society are not as effective as they could be if the society were organized along slightly different lines. Points to be stressed are the particularistic nature of social relations, high geographic mobility, and the presence of strongly perceived family ties, this last point persisting in spite of relatively unstable homes.

Particularism
In the now classic distinction between societies organized on the basis of achieved characteristics or "universalistic, " and those organized according to the ascribed status of a person or "particularistic, " ¹ British Honduras falls into the latter category. In spite of the presence of such large-scale institutions as formal and chartered government, civil service, secondary education, courts of law based on written statutes, sophisticated financial dealings, etc. , such small-scale practices as valuing who one is rather than what one does prevail. The ascribed characteristics of a person's status which are given to them at birth are usually the determinants of the person's place in the society. Such qualities as race, sex, family ties, and appearance are far more important in personal and business relations than education, employment, travel or work experience, and the like. People who possess such favored traits as light skin, Caucasian type hair and features, expatriate ancestry, and wealthy, socially or politically prominent relatives will be markedly more assured of success in most areas of life than those of similar abilities who are not comparatively gifted on the ascribed level. Of these characteristics, with regard to social control of deviant behavior, well-placed relatives is the most significant. People are well aware that socially established persons 'get away' with infractions against the rules of society and a double-standard of justice is perceived by many. However most persons do not so much desire justice for all as immunity from justice for themselves. This greatly undermines the moral basis of formal justice and creates a situation where control of some kinds of deviant behavior is not demanded by the members of the society; but, rather, they demand the right to indulge in that deviant behavior themselves with impunity.

The particularistic nature of the society also makes it possible, as noted before, for persons with a history of psychiatric disorder, very low intelligence, or a physical handicap to commit minor crimes and do very peculiar things without concerted societal reprimands. These abnormal persons will be allowed a wider latitude of behavior precisely because they are not normal and are not expected to be as discerning in their choices of conduct as other people. This "stigma," in Goffman's (1963) terms, can only be operant at all times in a fairly small society where each person's business and history is well-known, and the "proper" societal reaction will be immediate and based upon all the salient aspects of the persons involved. Thus there will not be a report to the police of a disturbance involving an "unidentified" man or woman. If the report is made at all it will be regarding a crazy man or crazy woman, and then it can be dealt with accordingly. In this context mental illness is treated more as an ascribed than achieved characteristic; and, indeed as it is regarded as an immutable and permanent part of a person as soon as it is recognized and confirmed, this is consistent with other aspects of how this society reacts to psychiatric disorder.

Particularism, with regard to deviant behavior, creates a situation where although people might feel "something should be done" about a person or event, there is realistically very little that will be done or is possible to do. Its presence creates a general lack of faith in the efficacy of both formal and informal types of social control. People realize that desired standards of behavior can be ignored without dire consequences, and this leads by inference, to a realization that perhaps the deviant behavior is not so wrong after all. The implications of this possible conclusion will be dealt with in the final chapter, but for the present it suffices to reiterate that special treatment accorded to people by virtue of personal characteristics which do not directly impinge on the matter under consideration, can contribute toward higher levels of deviant behavior than otherwise would be the case if the person were corrected independently of extraneous factors.

Strength of Family Ties
As was indicated in Chapter Three, British Hondurans have strong feelings of responsibility and duty toward close kinsmen, and this greatly affects reactions toward deviant behavior when it is perceived in a relative. If criminal or deviant activities are directed only against members of the household, there will be no legal action taken. There may well be no action taken at all of any kind. Families will tolerate having stolen goods stored in their homes, marijuana sold on their premises, and various other illegal activities rather than reporting near kin to the authorities. The effects of this are manifold. Primarily the person engaging in deviant acts does not fear the loss of support from and contact with kin. Initial deviant acts which are tolerated by the family make repetition of them likely. Persons feel that, no matter how their behavior offends the community at large, they will still have a home and a measure of acceptance from at least some persons. Few people are ever really abandoned by their relatives no matter what they do. If the deviant person is also the sole or main support of the household, then his or her activities will go on unquestioned by the recipients of his income no matter how it is derived or how he conducts himself. Questioning the source of cash is a luxury which few people could risk without dire consequences to their standings in a household. For this reason some women see themselves as forced to accept all manner of abuse and ill treatment from their husbands, even to the point of allowing their daughters to be molested and raped at very young ages. So this feeling that relatives should be protected and their failings overlooked coupled with a reluctance to criticize a person who provides money, makes it possible for men and women to be relatively immune from negative sanctions in the home.

Geographical Mobility
Yet if even this haven of acceptance and tolerance should be closed to a person, he or she still has an important option available-going somewhere else. Although British Honduras is too small a place for a person's reputation not to follow him, there is still the advantage of striking out in new territory where the people may at least have no personal enmity towards him. Leaving Belize or any other place is rarely effective in evading a police warrant, but it can be a useful strategy for a person who has alienated many neighbors, employers, and relatives. It is not uncommon for men to disappear for a period of time after impregnating a young girl whose parents may be considering court action. By the same token, the girl herself may shift to a new locale after the birth of the child. People commonly will go to an area where they have relatives living and make their homes with these kinsmen on either a permanent or temporary basis. A female who will assist with household chores and child-care is a welcome guest as long as she is useful; and, she will be fed and housed in return for her services, often for as long as she wants. A male, while usually not quite so welcome, will nevertheless be taken in at least temporarily and, if he finds employment or another source of income, he will be permitted to stay as long as he contributes economically to the household.

A person with a history of deviant behavior, in these circumstances, will hardly be starting life with a clean slate, but people will definitely give him or her the benefit of the doubt if he or she causes no immediate trouble. He will be allowed somewhat less leeway in behavior in this new locale but the situation will not be markedly different from the one just left. This option of relocating will always be open to a person unless he becomes truly notorious throughout the country and disowned by all his kin. Significantly there are few men and women in this circumstance. The particularistic nature of the society insures that people will be treated and judged as individuals with specific family connections, racial affiliations, and unique personal histories. Wherever a person goes he will not merely be treated as a deviant possessing a past filled with unpleasant incidents and unsavory offences, but rather as a member of a particular family. This guarantee of non-achieved role labelling creates opportunities for persons to enjoy long careers as troublemakers while they are sheltered by their families from societal reprisals. Add to this the high geographic mobility made possible by seasonal employment and a large underemployed work force all possessing roughly the same skills (or lack of them) and one has a constellation of circumstances which makes deviant behavior very difficult to control.

Weak Social Controls
The general utility of the existing means of social control will be discussed in the light of the above information. Both formal and informal institutions ² will be examined in terms of their efficacy and suitability to the local situation. Although there may be certain negative comments made in this section, they are not an implied or direct criticism of the ways in which British Hondurans order their affairs. Rather they are comments made in as impartial a manner as possible by an observer whose main task is to record the existing situation and to evaluate it in terms of what it is rather than what it might or ought to be. My main thesis in this section is that social control in British Honduras is generally weak and it is the effects of this weakness which are of concern here.

The main instrument of formal and legal control is the national police force which numbers about three hundred of which about two-thirds are stationed in Belize. Each district capital has a complement of fifteen to twenty, and the smaller villages rarely have more than one if there is one at all. Police are trained for six months before going on duty and the base pay is about $120.. 00 (B. H. ) per month.

Matters which come to the attention of the police may result in a 'case.' In these instances the person will have to stand trial before a magistrate (or judge) and perhaps a jury as well. There are at present four magistrate's courts in Belize and five others in the district capitals. There is also a Supreme Court which may be convened in Belize or the district capitals for appeals from Low Courts and more serious crimes. There are about a dozen lawyers in Belize City and they all handle criminal cases among their other duties. Persons rarely avail themselves of a lawyer for Low Court unless it is a very important matter involving personal property or a potentially long jail term. Based as it is upon English Common Law, the British Honduran legal system is not too different in design from that of the United States and thus is quite comprehensible to us. The main difference is that British Hondurans tend to be a rather litigious people and bring suits against each other frequently. Thus aside from police-charged defendants, the Low Courts' dockets are filled with various civil suits brought by personal parties, many amounting to little more than formalizations of fist-fights and shouting matches. These actions will be considered with informal social control rather than under police business.

It is difficult to discern what criteria are used by the police in the performance of their duties. At times they seem to enforce neither the intent nor the letter of the law. They direct traffic, do 'undercover' work, patrol the streets, investigate some complaints, man desks at the various police stations, maintain order at any public gathering, and take care of a host of administrative duties from vehicle registration to immigration. Many of them seem to function more like administrative bureaucrats than agents of social control. Individual low-ranking policemen do not seem to act independently against many offenders without first securing the approval of their superiors. They seem to view their roles as being determined more by governmental policy than by the printed statutes. This is, of course, very likely to be the situation with any national police force and British Honduran policemen seem quite unwilling to act without orders from above. Also, as with any local police in a small town, the police know and are involved personally with many persons with whom they come into contact during the pursuance of their duties. They will likely be more lenient with those whom they like while those out of their favor will suffer accordingly. People in British Honduras do not fear police, neither do they depend on them for the resolution of many problems. As a result of particularism, they regard the police in terms suitable to whichever policeman they happen to be dealing with, and the kind of rapport which they establish with him will influence the outcome of the matter more than the stark facts of the situation. This greatly reduces their effectualness as upholders and enforcers of the standards of the community. They are too often like the capricious parent--now reprimanding, then ignoring the offender. They do not view their role in the broad abstract terms required for an impartial treatment of those who commit or appear to be committing crimes. This kind of law enforcement does not realistically act as a deterrent to much crime or any other kind of anti-social deviant behavior because the activities of the police are only partly determined by the content of the laws they are enforcing and the kinds of activities with which they are faced.

The current situation with the system of courts is somewhat different. It is possible to influence the jurymen and those giving testimony, and courts are thus manipulated by the very persons against whom their activities are directed. These attempts to change the meting out of justice are widely viewed to be prudent and necessary. There are no cultural sanctions against them and they are frequently obvious to even a casual follower of current events. Very nearly everyone recognizes the same motivations in himself and finds nothing very unusual or reprehensible in this impulse to 'set things right' for one's self. In effect, this system of having to pay indemnities to save one's self from the consequences of illegal acts is in essence no different from being able to pay a fine rather than serve a jail term. The prescribed penalties for criminal acts in British Honduras are almost always jail terms rather than the assessment of monetary fines, yet the existence of informal exchanges of money to reduce penalties or have charges dropped approximates closely the American options of forfeiting bail or paying an assessed levy to the court. In fact the principal difference is that in British Honduras the funds are received and held by private parties while in the United States most payments go to the courts. The effect is exactly the same, that persons with sufficient means rarely go to jail at all or only for short periods. This means of negating the personal effects of criminal behavior is open to all who have access to large sums of money and if a poor person can raise the cash, he too will be able to materially affect the disposition of his case. This again undermines the abstract concept of justice, and leads to a toleration of criminal behavior and a lack of faith in the judicial system to right wrongs against society and the individuals who comprise it.

Another factor operating somewhat independently of this is the occasionally poor preparation of the prosecution case which makes it possible for persons to be found not guilty for reasons which do not reflect upon the integrity of the courts. Police who are under-trained and over-zealous can make errors of procedure, mishandle evidence, file reports improperly, and give counter-productive testimony. Cases like this, even when decided in the favor of a person who seems obviously guilty, do not rankle British Hondurans or cause them to criticize the government. Rather almost everyone enjoys seeing someone 'get away' with something once in a while, and cases which are badly bungled become favorite stories to tell and incidents to discuss. The heart of this whole matter lies in the fact that very nearly all British Hondurans (as almost all of humanity) want to be able to escape from the consequences of behavior that would ordinarily produce severe punishment. They therefore do not especially fault their legal system for making this possible because there is the likelihood that they might want to avail themselves of this opportunity some day.

There are times however when sentences given for serious criminal acts, principally those resulting in death of the victim, are so light that voices are raised against the leniency of the courts in newspapers and in general conversation. ³ The use of the death penalty was suspended some ten years ago and no one has been hanged since. Persons serving life sentences were formerly sent to Jamaica but whether this practice is still in effect is not known because no one has been sentenced to life imprisonment recently. Sentences for manslaughter and murder tend to run for several months to a few years, even when it is not the person's first capital offense. People are beginning to say that five or six years for murder is not too much time to spend in jail for ridding one's self of an enemy or malefactor.

By and large however, the mechanisms of informal social control are much more low key than murder. Most people are willing to tolerate a great deal of offensive behavior before they react. Women and children bear most of the brunt of anti-social and deviant behavior because they are the least able to defend themselves or do anything about it. Men are very reluctant to involve themselves in argument and ill-feeling for an offense against female and under age members of their families, especially if they have not witnessed the incident in question. This means that women and children out alone must be the recipients of hostile and malicious behavior as few men would annoy a man or molest his family in his presence. This greatly explains the tendency for women to stay at home most of the time and the efforts of some families to keep their children always in their own yards. They are trying to protect themselves from unpleasant incidents and avoid possible scenes on the street. That such a situation exists speaks eloquently for the amount of free-floating hostility and resentment present in the society. It should be kept in mind that it is not bodily injury or robbery which women fear for themselves and their children; it is verbal aggressiveness, personal insult, and obscene suggestions and remarks. The males who indulge in this kind of behavior are almost always young, have no regular employment, little education, and constitute one of the lowest levels of the society. They frequent specific areas of Belize and one of their haunts, the Pound Yard area, is so fraught with the certainty of unpleasantness that no one goes near the place unless it is an absolute necessity. This kind of universally offensive behavior could be controlled by either the police or the population at large, yet it is not. The police have not received orders to rectify the situation and frequent complaints from citizens are generally to no avail. Ordinary men have no wish to involve themselves with these unsavory characters as they perceive it to be none of their own business. They are, after all, rarely bothered by them. It thus falls to the weakest element of society to absorb the most obvious signs of social unrest and dissatisfaction. This prevents the matter ever being directly dealt with or confronted in its entirety by the whole society. It also precludes the resolution of this social problem.

There is evident throughout the country an unwillingness to involve one's self in a dispute which begins with other people, even when an apparently innocent party is easily getting the worst of it. Whenever a person is involved in an altercation over an insult, social slight, or point of honor, and things turn out badly for him, people will say, 'He looked for it.' By this they mean that the person was somehow seeking the beating, injury, or resulting arrest by merely defending himself. This kind of assessment of the situation does not encourage joining in on the side of right. Neither does it tend to make a possible agent of social control out of the man-on-the street. Far from it, as men greatly fear personal injury and trouble with the police as the probable outcome of any fracas. If person A provokes person B into a fight by any means other than assault and person B injures A, if and when the police are involved, person B will be charged with the offense, even if he is equally severely injured by A. This makes people very unwilling to place themselves in legal or personal jeopardy and hence creates an ideal situation for bullies and belligerents. If a citizen of British Honduras is wronged without a policeman present to make an arrest, the police will not later act on his behalf. It is not possible to go to the police station with tales of insult and injury and obtain a police warrant for a person's arrest, unless one is very severely injured. The only available means of redress is a personal suit, brought by the injured party, against the aggressor in Low Court. The outcome of this suit, if favorable to the wronged party, will be only a fine assessed against the offender and payable to the court. No jail terms are imposed if payment is made and it almost invariably is. It is not usually possible to collect personal or punitive damages. Most cases heard in Low Court are matters such as these, and this is really the only recourse which people have against acts of personal aggression and harassment. As nothing is materially changed by these cases, no matter what the outcome, they are primarily outlets for vindictiveness and a desire for personal revenge and public embarrassment of the offender. It is not an especially effective means of social control, for as long as a person can pay fines, he can be free to disturb the peace of the rest of the population. Some particularly quarrelsome and obnoxious persons make frequent appearances in court and are well known to all the participating personnel.

Throughout this section there has been an emphasis on what is not done to control deviant behavior rather than on the positive aspects of the situation. People are not openly terrorized on the streets and even the worse bullies cannot maim and injure at will. Yet there is still a great deal of anti-social and generally offensive behavior which goes unchecked. This is directly due to the prudence and restraint exercised by the vast majority of citizens and their respect for other people's rights. They try to mind their own business and avoid trouble. They well know that personal injury and a fine in court can be the result of taking up the challenge of a malcontent. This is on the whole an admirable impulse which tends to reduce violent altercations and resulting difficulties. I have seen many incidents in which British Hondurans indulge in unilateral or mutual provocation and 'baiting' and the encounter always seems to be on the verge of erupting into battle. Yet no one wants to strike the first blow, and usually it never materializes. They are content to express and exhaust their hostility through verbal invective and insult and they are masters of it. While seemingly insupportable remarks are hurled for long minutes and each principal faces the other with an actual or potential weapon (bottles are favored for threatening brandishment), the whole thing usually loses momentum after the worst has been said. By-standers seldom try to interpose themselves between the participants as this new development may upset the delicate balance between aggression and restraint and provide the impetus for actual fighting. They seem to have an understanding of the nature of the situation and know well how to deal with each other. An argument between a British Honduran and a foreigner will be much more likely to evolve into a physical battle than a similar altercation between British Hondurans. Thus men spend much of their lives being psychologically prepared for such crucial moments, and hesitation has survival value. For in a fight with broken bottles, knives, or machetes, not to mention the sudden appearance of a hand gun, there may not be a winner. Everyone recalls the fight in Corozal where both the men were dead from machete wounds when it was over. With women the situation is markedly different and as they are rarely able to defend themselves they do not learn to control their anger. They rather have frustrated desires to avenge themselves and these emerge at times with a terrifying intensity. There have been, in the last ten years, two cases of women murdering men by throwing gasoline on them in an enclosed area and then tossing a match. Several other women have severely injured men in this manner.

Such is the societal value in learning to dissipate anger verbally. But for this principle to be effective, other persons must learn to tolerate such outbursts. Hence the bully and the verbal provocateur have their positive functions. Likewise the nonintervention policies of the police make it possible for British Hondurans to deal with personal problems themselves and they thus become adept at handling difficult situations without the assistance of law enforcement officers. This is a valuable skill as one cannot always count on the presence of police to take matters into hand. It is possible to argue that the lack of social control in many areas of potentially disruptive behavior is an institutional expression of concern with other more serious areas of deviancy. For example, while marijuana smoking is common, the use of stronger or addictive drugs is unknown. There is much petty theft but very little embezzling, armed robbery, or grand theft. Verbal hostilities are heard shouted in every street and alley, yet serious injury or death due to fighting is rare. There are seldom more than a few murders a year and sometimes none--an amazingly low rate for a country where most men are armed in some way all the time. People destroy themselves slowly with rum, but suicide is an anomaly. The courts are often lenient but perhaps they do not view one man's punishment as a deterrent to another's crimes. Other aspects of the kind of minimal social control operant will be discussed in the concluding chapter. Here it is to be stressed that there appear to be some very positive effects.

NOTES
1. "Particularism" refers to relations among people which are based on the unique aspects of the relationship. They are typically "functionally diffuse, " have affective components, extend over a long period of time. "Universalism'' describes role relationships which involve only the situationally pertinent characteristics, typically achieved ones, of the persons involved. Hereditary qualities are stressed in particularistic relations, performance and efficiency in universalistic ones (Benedict, 1967b in Benedict, ed. , 1967a).

2. "Formal" social control here is construed to be negative sanctions brought by the society or community as a whole, through its representatives, against perceived offenders. These representatives are the police force, judges, and jurymen. The offenders are likely to be persons who appear to be guilty of public rather than private offenses. "Informal" social control refers to those sanctions which are initiated by an individual acting on his own behalf or on the behalf of a small segment of the society, such as a family group. Informal social control can be exemplified by such actions as ostracism, physical attack, poisoning, magical retribution, etc. It may also lead to bringing personal suit or summoning the police--in these two instances, informal social control may generate formal sanctions.

3. It would not be advisable to give specific examples of this trend as the persons involved in any of the cases could be immediately recognized, there being great attention paid to the few Supreme Court cases each year.

CONCLUSIONS
The nature of British Honduran society with a few regional exceptions, most notably the Indian villages, produces low expectations about the behavior of others. People are occasionally surprised but almost never shocked by news of what someone has done. Few people will ever send money or valuables by any messenger, even a relative. If someone is hired to do repair work and declares a part or tool is needed, he will almost never be given the cash to procure the item for fear he will steal or spend the money. Money is never given in advance for any pre-arranged service or quantity of goods. One is advised to check boledo and lottery tickets to make sure the vendor has not sold outdated and hence useless ones. People will hide money and jewelry from their closest kin. A man will make sexual advances towards any woman whom he finds appealing almost regardless of her age or relationship to him. Obeah specialists are hired to harm persons who would hardly suspect the instigator of wishing them ill fortune. Many women expect to be beaten occasionally by their husbands whether their own conduct provides the provocation or not. Men, on the other hand, suspect their mates of adding odd ingredients to their food, reducing their potency by magical means, and poisoning them. Belizeans learn to live with casual insult and obscenity. It is generally not possible to maintain public facilities such as pay telephones, toilets and baths, playgrounds, drinking fountains, vending machines, recreational areas, etc. in Belize City because of vandalism. There everyone takes precautions against theft. Pet dogs are poisoned by envious neighbors, but only the 'pretty' ones. In Belize adults take advantage of children out alone, taking money, purchases, and jewelry from them.

It should be remembered that these are not occasional isolated incidents but rather well-established patterns of behavior which people must sensibly guard against, because, if anything unpleasant happens, they will be judged to have 'looked for it' by not preventing it. Here it might be emphasized that the general feeling is not that one should not have to endure such types of behavior but rather that one must learn to adjust to them and be prepared if prevention fails. The onus is on the individual to protect himself and not on others to desist from anti-social behavior. Problems of vandalism and unprovoked hostility are usually not serious in the districts although they are not unknown there. Belize City is 'the home of it, ' as people say, and, according to local opinion, it is getting worse.

The important point is that the populace, expecting really so little of each other, tolerates a great deal of deviant behavior. A problem here would be whether or not this behavior ought to be called "deviant" since it seems to be accepted. The vast majority of the population feel that overt anti-social behavior is wrong, and this is related to their valuation of personal freedom as a vital part of life. They feel that persons should be able to go about their business without being 'bothered.' They want to be left alone by strangers and not 'studied' by neighbors and acquaintances. They try to avoid arguments and confrontations and this is one reason they do not attempt to control anti-social behavior themselves--they fear the consequences as being worse. Also, as noted earlier, much of this behavior is directed against women and children who are often powerless to avenge personal insult or harm.

All of these factors make it possible for some individuals to take 'advantage" ¹ of the rest of the population and conduct themselves as they please, unhampered by forces of social control. This results in high levels of deviant behavior which are probably more indicative of the reluctance of people to assert themselves than their acceptance or condoning of the behavior. They tolerate it but they do not approve of it. Even some types of deviant behavior such as theft and prostitution which are well integrated into ordinary life are still fundamentally thought to be wrong. People do not encourage their children to go into these professions and are disappointed when they do, even when they are profitable. Few families would accept the earnings of a prostitute or thief if there were any perceived alternatives; they would instead encourage the miscreant to reform and do all they could to help. That these people are not made outcasts is an expression of poverty and strong family ties and not ideas that it is permissible to steal or sell one's body. As additional evidence, British Hondurans do not volunteer this kind of information about each other-they are ashamed of it. I never heard people describe, even matter of-factly, a relative or friend as a 'whore' or 'thief' although this was not an uncommon situation. It is this kind of reaction which indicates that British Hondurans feel that these activities are morally wrong.

However, that these persons with essentially deviant roles are permitted to ply their trades, as it were, with little or no interference from the rest of society is instrumental in the recruitment of others. There is thus present at any given time a pool of deviant roles to be assumed. The presence of these unpunished deviants and available deviant roles tends to blur the distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. When a society does not consistently enforce its moral and behavioral codes by publicly castigating those who transgress them, a certain amount of "grey" area must occur between the black and white of the forbidden and the prescribed. ² People will begin to feel that some kinds of deviant behavior are perhaps not quite so wrong as they had previously thought. They may engage in testing the codes by progressively more bold assaults on the shared ideals of behavior, seeking a societal reaction which will indicate how far afield they may go with immunity. This is particularly likely to happen if there are material rewards for deviant behavior or if they are self-satisfying kinds of activities. Thus thieves find that they can pilfer from ships debarking cargo and burglarize houses but they cannot rob banks. . This blurring and continual testing significantly lessens the preventative a and corrective power of normative expectations, which is not particularly strong initially. Behaviorists tell us that intermittent or random punishment is not effective in extinguishing behavior. This must be doubly so when the person has some difficulty even in perceiving which kinds of behavior might possibly produce punishment.

An example of this would be in the area of sexual relations with young women. Sixteen years is the age of consent in British Honduras and any man who has carnal knowledge of a girl younger than this is liable to a court-ordered marriage (if he is single) or a jail term. Yet most families do not prosecute men who have relations with underage girls in their supervision. They do not want to 'shame the girl' in court, especially if the man involved is married and there is no possibility of a wedding. As most of the time there are no negative sanctions for this kind of misconduct, it is freely engaged in, albeit somewhat discreetly, by men who have the opportunity and inclination. As the age of sixteen is not strictly maintained by the society as the lower limit for sexual activity in women, it is in practice lower, and men openly admire and covet thirteen-year-old girls, although few would seduce a girl under fifteen. Men in British Honduras show a definite preference for very young girls as sexual partners, and as they are usually interested in these girls not as r potential marriage partners but rather only brief romantic liaisons, the community might be expected to provide a measure of protection for impressionable and easily influenced teenage girls. It however does not; and these girls, bored by a restrictive and unexciting home life and fairly uninformed in matters of sex, are easy prey for experienced men who begin by escorting them to movie theaters, restaurants, and taking them for 'rides' and 'walks.' Girls may realize the personal consequences of their conduct but they are not future- oriented and can easily be fooled by older men about the possible repercussions of their behavior. They have neither moral nor practical guides in this situation for older females do not provide them with any, and they can observe that the larger society does not unduly penalize females who have illegitimate children. Thus, although social norms do not admit the propriety of sexual relations for young girls, enough latitude is allowed in this area generally to withhold negative sanctions from being directed at either the females themselves or the males involved. The situation is tolerated to a point where moral imperatives are practically irrelevant because the ideal, virginity at marriage, is so seldom achieved; and the burden of the practical effects, a high incidence of bastardy, rests.on the community and the girls' relatives. It has become an area of conduct where ethical considerations are confused and no moral values have coercive power.

When situations such as this prevail, and there are very many similar ones, it has a significant effect on the perception and recognition of psychiatric disorder because persons who are afflicted with a disorder which produces anti-social behavior will have to be extremely deviant to be thought of as sufficiently abnormal to warrant suspicion of craziness. This means that where there is much casual "liberation" of property or theft, kleptomania will not be considered a symptom of mental disturbance. If there are not strong sanctions against sexual relations with young adolescent girls, men with an interest in female children will not be considered "sick" and in need of treatment, for their interests do not deviate too sharply from what is tacitly expected. When people try to harm others by secret and supposedly undetectable means, paranoid behavior does not seem pathological. If people tolerate physical and verbal abuse from one another, then excessive hostility is only that, not an indication of psychiatric disorder. If men frequently drink to excess and engage in anti-social behavior with little responsibility for the ensuing consequences, alcoholism will not be thought a symptom of psychosis. Women who seriously neglect their children or who beat them cruelly will not be viewed as crazy if they are in a society which does not stress parental responsibility for the well-being of children. It is not, after all, the 'luck' of some children to survive.

In British Honduras deviant behavior alone is never evidence of mental illness. It must be accompanied by the kinds of extremely bizarre or peculiar behavior which are only appropriate for severely disturbed persons. The situation is such that anti-social behavior tends to mitigate the implications of even the bizarre as persons will assume that weird speech and gestures are perhaps only another manifestation of 'bad-mind.' A manifestly 'wicked' or evil person is never thought of as approaching or exhibiting any kind of psychiatric disorder as the local term, 'bad-mind, ' describes this particular defect of character and it is not at all related to being crazy and no extreme of bad-mindedness is ever viewed as even mild mental disturbance. This is much the opposite of the pattern found in the United States where there is a tendency to view great malevolence as psychosis, assuming that any person to be "that bad" must be mentally disturbed. Obviously these contrasting views present very divergent assumptions about human nature. British Hondurans see man as essentially imperfect and not as innately "good,." an idea which may be related to religious views of man as fallen and sinful. This attitude could also partly explain their low expectations with regard to each other's behavior but more likely the two are mutually reinforcing.

Bad-minded or wicked persons, such as those mentioned in Chapter Nine, are far from rare in British Honduras and if they are found to be a serious threat to society, they will be jailed for their crimes and not placed in the mental hospital. The policy in British Honduras is to use Seaview only as a place for the treatment and confinement of those with perceived psychiatric disorder. It does not function as a catch-all for the troublesome or disapproved elements of society. They are imprisoned or left at large. This is one reason why it is possible to have such low security at Seaview and why there are no "snake pit" associations with the hospital. People do not generally fear the patients or any crazy person because psychiatric disorder is not closely related conceptually to horrifying crimes. Quite the opposite, for in the local frame of reference, those are the crimes of sane people who rationally set out to perform evil acts or who perform them when they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. British Hondurans feel that anyone in sufficient contact with reality to try to conceal a criminal act or hide the evidence of his or her own involvement in it is not crazy. Crazy people act as if they do not know what is going on, and they do things openly which show they do not evaluate their conduct in the same way other people would. If a person assaults another or destroys property and openly defends his actions as justified by a very wrong idea or a bizarre one, then he is obviously not partaking of the same social reality as his neighbors and relatives. However if he performs these actions or any others, shows signs of realizing that he has done a wrong thing and then either says he does not care or defends himself in the same way a sane person would, he is likely to be considered only a vicious person, not a crazy one.

Insanity in British Honduras then is a violation of the unspoken and unconsciously known norms of behavior and interaction, the most basic guides to conduct, many of which are enforced in most human societies. These generally are centered around the presentation of one's person and one's comportment in public places and in inter-personal relations. A sane person is expected to be properly clothed, recognize the existence of other persons, live among human beings, take a mate, speak the language coherently, make reasonable kinds of body movements and gestures, and eat what is culturally defined as food. If we are ever consciously instructed in these things, it is at such an early age that our understanding of them is complete during childhood. These are the norms which crazy persons violate in British Honduras, not abstract ethical rules or detailed legal guides. They do not behave themselves like members of a society of humans and for this reason they are taken away if they become an impediment to the normal social interaction of others or a danger to themselves. Most of the non-institutionalized cases of psychiatric disorder in British Honduras are of two broad types: those with a physical handicap which removes them from the category of "person" to begin with and those with intractably erroneous ideation. The former are not expected to approach even baseline normalcy and so are excused and discounted if they do not, and the latter are able to interact in a fairly normal manner except for the bizarre content of their conversation. Persons who are unable to consistently appear like socially defined persons are generally s kept in Seaview or very much at home.

This is in marked contrast to the situation now prevailing in the United States where "standards" for insanity are so vague and diffuse that it has been recently demonstrated that even the staff-from psychiatrist to ward attendant--of mental hospitals cannot well differentiate the sane from the insane. By admitting eight sane persons to different hospitals as "pseudopatients" who escaped detection by the staff, but interestingly not by the patients, Rosenhan dramatized the conclusion long ago reached by Scheff, Szasz, Edgerton, Sarbin, Goffman, and many others--that psychiatric diagnosis is hardly an exact science (Rosenhan, 1973:252). As mentioned in the introduction, most psychiatric diagnosis is done by lay persons, and psychiatrists tend to be able to find anyone insane once that person's sanity has been impugned. It is therefore possible and indeed probable that there are many currently hospitalized persons in the United States who are not, except in a very limited and special sense, mentally disturbed. In the United States there are so many kinds of illegal and improper behavior which can be construed as symptoms of psychiatric disorder that it is possible for there to be much disagreement, especially among professionals, as to a person's sanity. Why this is so is not, I believe, well understood by anyone. My research indicates that it may be due to the increasingly universalistic nature of American society and the large number of roles each person occupies simultaneously. This proliferation of roles makes it more likely that some behavior can be construed as inappropriate to one or more roles and hence "abnormal. " Or the behavior may be within the parameters allowed by other roles and perfectly all right.. This makes profound disagreement possible about the appropriateness of a person's behavior and hence his or her sanity. Importantly this rarely occurs in British Honduras as only those persons who consistently display the symptoms of a severely disassociated psychotic are judged insane. People occupy fewer roles and most of these tend to be ascriptive and more compatible than a diversity of achieved roles. Rosenhan's "pseudopatients" would have been spotted immediately in Seaview and would probably never have been admitted. The situation in British Honduras indicates that there it is feasible to institutionalize only the severest cases of psychiatric disorder, whether this severity is expressed in anti-social behavior or merely the very inappropriate. For the most part, institutionalization follows when the person is either perceived as a definite threat to the community and/or is manifestly unable to care for him- or herself. This has a number of effects in turn which influence the recognition of psychiatric disorder. Primarily it creates an atmosphere of tolerance which encourages the general public to deal with the recognized mentally ill much as they would with a non-stigmatized person whenever conditions permit. ³ As they see much behavior which is elsewhere thought to be clinically characteristic of mental disturbances, they learn to accept it in a matter-of-fact way and they do not have an irrational fear of mental patients as they know from personal experience that most of them are not dangerous or violent. This kind of acceptance of moderate to severe cases makes those with only mild afflictions much less visible than if virtually every recognized case of psychiatric disorder were hospitalized. Also, as has been stressed elsewhere, there are many persons who, although they could hardly escape commitment in the United States are not even viewed as crazy and they are not considered by either the authorities or their neighbors to require confinement. So there are two aspects of this toleration of clinically defined psychiatric disorders--the absolute tolerance of perceived craziness and the relative tolerance of it in forms which are not locally thought to be indicative of mental disturbance. Both are closely related to other aspects of the society, and are, in a sense, the logical products of 1 their general assessment of human nature and the way things ought to be. For in any discussion of mental illness, it must be remembered that the imputation of mental illness is equivalent to a negative definition of the proper human state. The more exacting standards a society sets, the more likely it will be to have a high rate of mental illness simply because its definition of mental health will allow for little deviation. British Honduran society is not now so complex that each person must always function in terms of a multiplicity of tightly interlocking roles. There is still room for persons whose behavior is appropriate for no one except an eccentric or local "character. " This, coupled with their high regard for personal freedom and desire not to be involved in another's business, makes them unlikely to call for a psychiatrist the moment a person acts out the consequences of having ideas which differ from those of the other members of the society. Neither do they believe human beings to be so innately good that persons must be mentally unbalanced to perform bad acts. They rather think that he or she is a bad person. This is certainly not a simplistic view and is, in some respects, more sophisticated than a unified view of all humanity. It is a realistic one and eventually produces situations where persons may be condemned for the wrongness of their acts rather than the malfunction of their mental processes. This is a straight-forward moral judgment and one more likely to have a reinforcing and deterrent effect than the kinds which are indirectly made and treat every human failing as a "sickness" of some sort which needs medical care. If, as some sociologists have theorized, deviant behavior is necessary and serves positive functions in a society (those of marking out the outside limits of behavior), then these functions will be enhanced by morally-based reprisals. A person who had done wrong can suffer remorse, may be made an example to the community, it is possible to punish him, and he may be rehabilitated. However a "sick" person no longer must suffer the pangs of conscience and can hardly be put in the stocks to illustrate publicly the consequences of breaking the rules of society. He cannot redeem himself or make expiation for his sins. He, in the medical metaphor, can only be treated and perhaps cured. This is a strange fate indeed for those who were originally singled out for wrong conduct, often in a moral sense. British Hondurans clearly make the distinction between a morally wrong act and a very peculiar one, according to local criteria, and the societal reaction to either of these two classes of abnormal behavior is conceptually consistent.

There are many ways in which abnormal behavior may be handled in a society. It can be ignored, or abnormal persons may be killed or exiled. The requirements for survival may be so rigid that only the normally functioning can survive, and in this instance the problem takes care of itself. Abnormal persons may be summarily taken into custody and forever isolated from society. It is possible to punish them or they may be resocialized into normalcy. They may be treated as sick persons and put into hospitals. They could be permanently marked and always treated as pariahs. Some of these methods are only possible in large and complex societies, others would be workable in small-scale groups. So there is a measure of organizational appropriateness in the solution of the problem of abnormal behavior aside from the collective wishes of the society. In British Honduras people feel that a person with incapacitating psychiatric disorder should be cared for by the government and that others less severely affected should be allowed to lead lives in as ordinary a manner as possible, depending, if necessary, on the goodwill of the community and the largesse of their relatives. They thus indicate a willingness to tolerate odd behavior from other people to the point where it becomes annoying and offensive, and occasionally more serious than that. However this toleration has its own rewards in those culturally defined situations which allow even ordinary persons, most especially men, to indulge in unseemly behavior with virtual immunity from negative sanctions. Thus, British Hondurans, in more ordinary terms, get what they want, and also deserve what they get.

NOTES
1. This is precisely the term used locally, only there it is used as a noun or transitive verb.

2. This is part of the positive effects of deviant behavior--a limited amount of it, properly punished, keeps the "grey" area minimal.

3. This avoids the rejection syndrome described by Scheff (1966) in which a person's first odd behavior may precipitate mild ostracism and feelings of rejection which may intensify his mental problems and make him more likely to act oddly again, ad infinitum.

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Harris, Marvin
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Hollingshead, A. B. and F. C. Redlich
     1958 Social Class and Mental Illness. Wiley, New York.

Humphreys, R. A.
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Jaco, E. Gartly (ed.)
     1958 Patients, Physicians, and Illness. Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
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Lemert, Edwin M.
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Losconczi, E.
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     1969 Drunken Comportment. Aldine, Chicago.

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Parsons, Talcott
     1958 "Definitions of health and illness in the light of American values and social structure. " In Jaco (ed.), 1958:165- 188. 291

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Reed, Nelson
     1964 The Caste War of Yucatan. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

Reina, Ruben E.
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Romney, D. H. (ed. )
     1959 Land in British Honduras. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London.

Rosenhan, D. L.
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Sarbin, Theodore E.
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Scheff, Thomas J.
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     1967 Mental Illness and Social Process. Harper and Row, New York.

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Thompson, J. Eric
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      Tripartite Report. Government Printer, Belize.

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