A 36-year history of fatal road rage in Marion County, Oregon: 1963-1998

This paper documents the 36-year history, with five examples, of fatal road rage in Marion County, Oregon. Relevant details (all that were available) from each case are presented. Alcohol intoxication was present in four of our five cases. We include two deaths by gunshot at close range, two deaths as a result of a motor vehicle traffic accident, and one natural death. All subjects were males. Three were Caucasian and two were Hispanic. The three subjects in Cases 1, 2 and 3 were complete strangers to the occupants of the other involved vehicles. The subjects in Cases 4 and 5 (along with the occupants of their own vehicles) were acquaintances of the occupants of the involved vehicle. There appears to be no previous forensic, medical or psychiatric literature on road rage as such. We present an initial psychiatric evaluation of the perpetrators of this type of fatal assault. There are no specific statutes in Oregon, at the state or county levels, regarding road rage. However, the city of Gresham, Oregon, recently enacted an ordinance regarding road rage. We stress the need for further study of this phenomenon, especially through the use of the psychological-psychiatric autopsy.     

Testing a Financial Incentive to Promote Re‐employment among Displaced Workers: The Canadian Earnings Supplement Project (ESP)

This article presents findings from a randomized experiment conducted in four Canadian provinces to measure the effects of a generous financial incentive that was designed to promote rapid re‐employment among workers who were displaced from their jobs by changing economic conditions. The incentive tested was an earnings supplement which, for as long as 2 years and as much as $250 weekly, would replace 75 percent of the earnings loss incurred by displaced workers who took a new lower‐paying full‐time job within six months of receiving a supplement offer. Findings from the experiment indicate that although persons offered the supplement understood its terms and conditions, only 2 out of 10 actually received supplement payments. Furthermore, the supplement offer had little effect on job‐search behavior, employment prospects, or receipt of unemployment insurance. Nevertheless, persons who received supplement payments benefited from them substantially. On average, they received payments for 64 weeks, totaling $8,705. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

New York State of Mind: Parental Incarceration and Children's Visitation in New York State

The incarceration of a parent has a variety of negative effects on a child's psychological, academic, and developmental success. Children can end up in foster care as a result of the state terminating parental rights due to the parent's incarceration. Despite imprisonment of their parent(s), maintenance of visitation with the parent(s) is still important for their children. However, not all prisons have visitation programs that are suitable to visiting children. This Note proposes a model state statute that will recognize the importance of visitation, implement “child friendly” visitation programs, facilitate training for prison staff, and provide transportation for children in major cities to the prison facilities.