Suicide by cop among female subjects in officer-involved shooting cases

An analysis of suicide by cop (SBC) among female subjects in a large sample (n = 707) of officer-involved shootings (OIS) is reported. Women represented 3% of the total sample (n = 21) and 5% (n = 12) of the 256 SBC cases. Therefore, 57% of the women (n = 12) were classified as SBC, and 81% of the women (n = 17) behaviorally evidenced some suicidal motivation. The results underscore that when a female subject becomes involved in a situation leading to an OIS, there is a very high likelihood that she is motivated to be intentionally killed. She is almost guaranteed to have a diagnosed mental disorder, has been prescribed psychiatric medications, and is abusing a substance at the time, most likely alcohol. Nevertheless, she also poses a serious risk of injury to both police officers and civilians during the encounter and will possess a firearm half the time. The wish for suicide is often precipitated by serious relationship issues. Comparisons are made to the male subjects in our previous study.     

Notes on the psychologist expert witness

The psychologist who takes the witness stand to testify concerning the reliability of an eyewitness's testimony should assume the role of a watchdog, not a lapdog for the prosecution or an attack dog for the defense. The watchdog role is illustrated by a discussion of the decisions made by the author before accepting an invitation to testify as an expert.     

Targeting Federal Assistance to Local Governments in Rural and Low-Income Areas, 1972-1983

Two questions have predominated policy discussions about theallocation of federal aid to rural local governments duringthe last two decades: whether rural areas were getting their"fair share" and whether the aid was appropriately targetedto deserving communities. An analysis of data for 1972–1983shows that although the position of rural governments apparentlyimproved during the 1970s, the gains were principally due tosharply increased loans to rural areas, while urban areas benefitedfrom increases in grants-in-aid. Conversely, the aid reductionsof the early 1980s, by cutting into loans, which are less valuablethan grants, appear to have hurt rural areas less than urbanareas. A modest amount of income-targeting in federal developmentfunds was evident in the early 1970s, but it deteriorated duringthe following decade. By 1983 counties with higher incomes andmore satisfactory levels of public services received higherlevels of aid than places that might have been considered moreneedy. While the reasons for the generally diminished targetingare not clear, several possibilities, including the increasingimportance of loans as a federal aid mechanism, are considered.     

Reviews

Jaan Valsiner, Developmental Psychology in the Soviet Union. Brighton, UK: The Harvester Press, 1988, x + 398 pp., £35.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Archie Brown, ed., Political Leadership in the Soviet Union, London: Macmillan, 1989, xi + 245 pp., £35.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

Susan L. Clark, ed., Gorbachev's Agenda: Changes in Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989, xviii + 422 pp., $35.95 p/b.

David Wedgwood Benn, Persuasion and Soviet Politics. London: Basil Blackwell, 1989, x + 243 pp., £25.00 h/b.

Karl‐Eugen Wädekin, ed., Communist Agriculture: Farming in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. London and New York: Routledge, 1989, xviii + 331 pp., £50.00

Gary Bertsch and Christopher T. Saunders, eds., East‐West Economic Relations in the 1990s. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, and Vienna: The Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies, 1989, ix + 305 pp., £45.00.

Carl G. Jacobsen ed., Soviet Foreign Policy: New Dynamics, New Themes. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1989, xv + 214 pp.

Sylvia Woodby, Gorbachev and the Decline of Ideology in Soviet Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989, vii + 127 pp., $25.00 p/b.

Stephen J. Cimbala, Uncertainty and Control: Future Soviet and American Strategy. London: Pinter Publishers, 1990, viii + 183 pp., £28.00.

Alex Pravda and Peter J. S. Duncan eds., Soviet‐British Relations Since the 1970s. Cambridge, London: RIIA/Cambridge University Press, 1990, xii + 260 pp., £30.00.

Kirsten Amundsen, Soviet Strategic Interests in the North. London: Frances Pinter in association with John Spiers, 1990, x + 153 pp., £30.00.

Nicola Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin America, 1959–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, ix + 252 pp., £25.00 or $39.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Ilya Prizel, Latin America Through Soviet Eyes: the Evolution of Soviet Perceptions During the Brezhnev Era 1964–1982. Soviet and East European Studies, 72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, xiii+249 pp., £32.50, $44.50.

Milan Hauner, What is Asia to Us? Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990, xvi + 264 pp., £30.00.

Michael Kirkwood, ed., Language Planning in the Soviet Union. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1989, x + 230 pp., £35.00.

Andrei Gromyko, Memoirs. New York: Doubleday, 1990, pp. 414, $24.95.

Ihor Kamenetsky, ed., The Tragedy of Vinnytsia: Materials on Stalin's Policy of Extermination in Ukraine (1936–1938). Toronto, New York: The Ukrainian Historical Association, 1989, 286 pp., notes, bibliography, index, illustrations, $25.00 h/b.

Dov. B. Lungu, Romania and the Great Powers 1933–1940. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1989, xv + 293 pp., £44.55.

Paul LeBlanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. London: Humanities Press International, 1990, xxxiv + 399 pp., £45.00.

Daniel Rancour‐Lafferiere, The Mind of Stalin: a Psychoanalytic Study. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1988, 161 pp., $17.95.     

Sex-Based Occupational Segregation in U.S. State Bureaucracies, 1987–97

Is the extent of sex-based occupational segregation in U.S. state bureaucracies related to agency policy missions? Drawing on arguments by Lowi (1985), we contend that levels of sex-based occupational segregation in state bureaucracies vary depending on whether an agency's policy mission is distributive, regulatory, or redistributive. We employ data on the distribution of administrative and professional employees by sex in several types of state agencies across all 50 states for 1987–97. Our findings indicate high levels of occupational segregation among administrative cadres in agencies with distributive and regulatory policy commitments; however, professional workforces in these agencies have become less gender segregated over time. We find no evidence of occupational segregation among administrative and professional workforces in redistributive agencies. We argue that researchers need to examine the relationship between glass walls and other kinds of sex-based employment impediments, such as glass ceilings.     

Social information processing, subtypes of violence, and a progressive construction of culpability and punishment in juvenile justice

Consistent with core principles of liberal theories of punishment (including humane treatment of offenders, respecting offender rights, parsimony, penal proportionality, and rehabilitation), progressive frameworks have sought to expand doctrines of mitigation and excuse in order to reduce culpability and punishment. With respect to juvenile justice, scholars have proposed that doctrinal mitigation be broadened, and that adolescents, due to aspects of developmental immaturity (such as decision-making capacity), be punished less severely than adults who commit the same crimes. One model of adolescent antisocial behavior that may be useful to a progressive theory of punishment in juvenile justice distinguishes between instrumental violence, by which the actor behaves thoughtfully and calmly to achieve personal gain, and reactive violence, which is characterized as impulsive, emotional retaliation toward a perceived threat or injustice. In particular, social cognitive differences between instrumental and reactive violence have implications for responsibility, length and structure of incarceration, rehabilitation, and other issues that are central to a progressive theory of juvenile culpability and punishment.