From animal cruelty to serial murder: applying the graduation hypothesis

Although serial murder has been recorded for centuries, limited academic attention has been given to this important topic. Scholars have attempted to examine the causality and motivations behind the rare phenomenon of serial murder. However, scant research exists which delves into the childhood characteristics of serial murderers. Using social learning theory, some of these studies present supporting evidence for a link between childhood animal cruelty and adult aggression toward humans. Based on five case studies of serial murderers, we contribute to the existing literature by exploring the possible link between childhood cruelty toward animals and serial murder with the application of the graduation hypothesis.     

Measures of aggression and mood changes in male weightlifters with and without androgenic anabolic steroid use

Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone are associated with increased aggression that is hypothesized to be a function of testosterone serum concentrations, mood, and personality. The study attempted to characterize this relationship among weightlifters who were users (n = 10) and nonusers (n = 18) of anabolic steroids. Participants were interviewed using the Modified Mania Rating Scale and Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression to assess mood, the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI) and Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP) to assess aggression, and the Personality Disorder Questionnaire (PDQ-R) to assess personality. Blood samples were obtained for the determination of total, free, and weakly bound testosterone. Comparisons of continuous variables between testosterone users and non-users were performed with a parametric (unpaired t-test) or non-parametric (Mann-Whitney) test where appropriate. Correlations with testosterone were examined separately for testosterone users and non-users, using Spearman rank correlation. The subjective (BDHI) and objective (PSAP) assessments of aggression found that supranormal testosterone concentrations were associated with increased aggression. However, the PDQ-R results suggest that this finding was confounded by the personality disorder profile of the steroid users, because steroid users demonstrated Cluster B personality disorder traits for antisocial, borderline, and histrionic personality disorder.     

Managing Carrots and Sticks: Changes in State Administrators' Perceptions of Cooperative and Coercive Federalism During the 1990s

The so-called devolution revolution was a significant themein American federalism in the 1990s. Opinions on the issue varywidely. Some suggest that "major changes" occurred in intergovernmentalrelations. Others were pessimistic about the occurrence of anydevolution during the decade. We investigated changes in intergovernmentalrelations between the national and state governments in the1990s on the basis of Elazar's approach to American federalisminvolving: (1) administration, (2) cooperation and coercion,and (3) regulation. We used American State Administrator's Project(ASAP) data collected in 1994 and 1998 to access state administrators'perceptions of national fiscal and regulatory impacts on stateagencies. We conclude that state administrators' perceptionof national fiscal and regulatory impacts changed only moderatelyfrom 1994 to 1998, and that evolution rather than revolutiondescribes better the character of state-national intergovernmentalchanges during the 1990s.     

Who Governs Japan? Politicians and Bureaucrats in the Policy-making Processes

The long-running debate about who governs Japan has been given a new twist by 'rat-choicers' who argue that Japan has been governed for the last thirty years or more neither by bureaucrats nor by a 'conservative coalition' of bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen but by the Liberal Democratic Party alone. This article examines their arguments and sets them in the context of other competing and conflicting explanations. It is argued that more relevant and researchable questions are what is governed and how, an approach calling for a more nuanced analysis of policy making in order to observe the impact on different policies and policy-processes of the role of the state and its institutional structures and their embedded 'collective identities'.     

Nothing to Lose: An Insurance Company's Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing,Punitive Damages,and The Legacies of Campbell

This article explores the potential evisceration of the deterrence function of punitive damages, one of the only economic incentives that deters insurance companies from opportunistically breaching their insurance policies. Readers will gain an understanding of why large punitive damages awards are essential in the insurance coverage field and how such awards may implicate due process standards. The article explains the constitutional limitations set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in imposing punitive damages, and provides a roadmap of how lower courts and practitioners are presently applying these rules.     

Sexual asphyxia in siblings

We present an accidental autoerotic asphyxiation of a 24-year-old man. Further investigation revealed that 18 years earlier, his brother, then 13, had been found dead, hanging in the family bathroom. Although that death had been ruled a suicide, reevaluation of the death scene indicates that this was also an autoerotic asphyxiation. This is the first reported case of sexual asphyxia involving siblings.