Women Offenders and the Gendered Effects of Public Policy1

At 17%, women represent a significant proportion of all offenders under criminal justice supervision in the US. Drawing on the findings from their report, “Gender-Responsive Strategies: Research, Practice, and Guiding Principles for Women Offenders,” the authors maintain that public policy has ignored the context of women's lives and that women offenders have disproportionately suffered from the impact of ill-informed public policy. This discussion of the implications of gender within the criminal justice system is based on a simple assumption: responding to the differences between women and men in criminal behavior and to their antecedents is critical to gender-responsive policy. Building on the pathway theoretical perspective, we find that in addition to the gendered impact of the war on drugs, policy changes in welfare reform, housing, and other social policy arenas combine to create a disparate impact on drug abusing women and women of color. Key policy areas affecting the lives of women offenders and their children include welfare benefits, drug treatment, housing, education, employment, and reunification with children. We conclude that addressing the realities of women's lives through gender-responsive policy and programs is fundamental to improved outcomes at all criminal justice phases. A blueprint for gender-responsive policy development is described through six guiding principles and their policy implications.     

Adolescent deviation and age

Traditional theories of delinquency causation generally fail to consider delinquency in the context of norms and age-role transitions peculiar to adolescence. Hence, in this study, an age-based theory of delinquency causation is developed, which assumes the importance of norms and roles specific to adolescence. This theory draws upon the assumption that socialization is recurrent, in contrast to the premises regarding socialization which underlie traditional theories of adolescent deviance. The recurrent model of socialization and that assumed by traditional theorists are discussed, and their implications for the causes of delinquent behavior are examined. Some effort is made to show that the recurrent model of socialization suggests an anomie of age as the basis for delinquent acts. It is suggested that this age-based anomie stems from conditions of normlessness associated with certain role transitions in adolescence and the pacing of these transitions. Further, it is suggested that certain groups are especially prone to an anomic age transition. The role transitions most likely to be subject to such anomic conditions and the adolescent subgroups most prone to experience anomie as a result of the pacing of their age-role transitions are identified.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1979. Major interests are deviant behavior, drugs, juvenile delinquency.     

Offender Presence, Available Victims, Social Disorganization and Sex Offense Rates

The present study examines the utility of social disorganization theory for identifying community characteristics associated with varying rates of sex offenses both in general and against children. Measures of economic deprivation, community stability, cohesion, informal social control, presence of known offenders, and available opportunities are used in one urban county (Louisville, KY) to identify characteristics of census tracts with high rates of sex offenses. Results show that social disorganization theory is a moderately useful explanation for sexual offenses against adults, but not for sexual offenses against children.     

Application of the BioMek 2000 Laboratory Automation Workstation and the DNA IQ System to the extraction of forensic casework samples

Robotic systems are commonly utilized for the extraction of database samples. However, the application of robotic extraction to forensic casework samples is a more daunting task. Such a system must be versatile enough to accommodate a wide range of samples that may contain greatly varying amounts of DNA, but it must also pose no more risk of contamination than the manual DNA extraction methods. This study demonstrates that the BioMek 2000 Laboratory Automation Workstation, used in combination with the DNA IQ System, is versatile enough to accommodate the wide range of samples typically encountered by a crime laboratory. The use of a silica coated paramagnetic resin, as with the DNA IQ System, facilitates the adaptation of an open well, hands off, robotic system to the extraction of casework samples since no filtration or centrifugation steps are needed. Moreover, the DNA remains tightly coupled to the silica coated paramagnetic resin for the entire process until the elution step. A short pre-extraction incubation step is necessary prior to loading samples onto the robot and it is at this step that most modifications are made to accommodate the different sample types and substrates commonly encountered with forensic evidentiary samples. Sexual assault (mixed stain) samples, cigarette butts, blood stains, buccal swabs, and various tissue samples were successfully extracted with the BioMek 2000 Laboratory Automation Workstation and the DNA IQ System, with no evidence of contamination throughout the extensive validation studies reported here.