A middle-aged female serial killer

The case of a 48-year-old woman accused of killing at least 12 elderly women and attempting to kill another one during the last 3 years is presented. Extensive neuropsychological, electrophysiological, and neuropsychiatric testing showed no evidence of a DSM-IV-TR Axis I diagnosis, but a decrease in executive functions and abnormalities in the processing of affective stimuli were found. Behavioral and psychophysiological studies revealed dissociation between knowing how to behave and actually behaving in socially acceptable ways. According to the woman, killing was just her response to "humiliating situations." Two potentially significant conditions in her past history are found: (i) childhood abuse; and (ii) multiple head injuries. It is conjectured that the nature of her crimes, paranoid and personality traits, a probable frontal brain dysfunction, as well as a specific demographic and social context represent unusual factors accounting for her violent behavior.     

For Both Love and Money: Viviana Zelizer's The Purchase of Intimacy

Viviana Zelizer's recent book, The Purchase of Intimacy (2005), presents an innovative theory of how social and legal actors negotiate rights and obligations when money changes hands in intimate relationships—a perspective that could change how we understand many things, from valuations of homemaking labor to the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. This essay describes Zelizer's critique of the reductionist “Hostile Worlds” and “Nothing But” approaches to economic exchange in intimate relationships and then explains her more three‐dimensional approach, “Connected Lives.” While Zelizer focuses on family law, the essay goes beyond that context, extending Zelizer's approach to transfers of genetic material and concluding that her approach could point toward a more equitable resolution of disputes in and about these markets.     

Chapter 3: The Influence of Juveniles' Race on Police Decision-Making: An Exploratory Study

Previous studies evaluating the effects of juveniles' race on police decision-making have rendered inconclusive results. Many of these studies have suffered from methodological shortcomings. The present study utilized vignettes to describe police-juvenile encounters in order to determine police charging practices for black and white youth. The results suggest modest offense-related race effects. Black youth tend to be charged with more offenses while white youth were released more frequently. A refinement in the research methodology is indicated for further explorations of the critical issue of police bias.     

Prospects for Low-Income Mothers' Economic Survival Under Welfare Reform

This article discusses implications of data on the income andemployment patterns of welfare recipients for the types of programmaticand financial investments that states will need to make forsuccessful welfare reform. Research by the Institute for Women'sPolicy Research found that even before welfare reform, womenworked significant amounts of time and relied heavily on familysupports to survive, when possible. High school education andjob training are important predictors of having welfare andescaping poverty, while work experience alone has relativelylittle effect on leaving welfare. States will be challengedto provide these educational services within the restrictionson job training and education under the new welfare laws. Workingwelfare recipients in the institute's sample spent more thanone third of their income on child care, which speaks to theimportance of increased child-care subsidies for helping womenescape poverty. It is important for states and communities tomonitor the implementation of supportive services, track outcomesfor women who leave welfare, and improve work environments andemployment benefits.     

A Prospective Investigation of Racial Disparity in the Juvenile Justice System

Abstract Black males are over-represented in the juvenile justice system. With the exception of a few recent studies, most investigations to determine why such over-representation exists have used retrospective data from existing records, conceptualized their research as a series of separate juvenile justice decisions, and employed bivariate and zero-order correlation techniques. This paper presents the results of a prospective study designed to determine why disproportionately more black than white males are represented in Georgia's juvenile justice system. Youth from eight communities were tracked through four decision points: police apprehension, and juvenile court intake, adjudication, and disposition. The study examines the direct and indirect effects of race on decision making. Multivariate analysis methods allowed specification of results for each separate decision point as well as the cumulative effects of race across decision points.