This study compares the patterns of homicides committed by women and men. Classic comparison studies of homicides by men and women suggest that each group kills in ways that are reflective of socially approved gender role behavior. More recently, however, research on women who kill suggests that they frequently do so in response to threats of violence by men. In contrast to the gender role and self-protection models of women’s homicides, the liberation hypothesis suggests that patterns of women’s violence will increasingly resemble patterns of violence by men. Based on our analysis of court records of 158 cases of homicides by men and women over a six-year period, we find little support for the liberation hypothesis and considerable support for the gender role and self-protection models. Compared to men, women more frequently kill intimates and kill in situations in which their victim initiated the physical aggression.
In a study of 32,000 referrals to juvenile court, the effects of a program to deinstitutionalize status offenders on detention decisions, intake screening, and final dispositions were examined. Although the results of a general comparison of preprogram and postprogram court actions showed relatively little change in court policies, the data did indicate a slight general trend toward less use of secure detention, a greater use of informal hearings, and a lower rate of juveniles placed on probation or in institutions. Differential treatment based on race was evident throughout the 5-year period. Whereas the rate of secure detention of black juveniles declined overall, it increased for black status offenders, especially females. There was a substantial decrease in the use of formal hearings and in the severity of final dispositions for all cases involving black juveniles.
This paper focuses on a western state's effort to implement a reform policy to professionalize its correctional system. Specifically, we study the process of implementing a new in-service training regimen designed to instill professional ethics and practices in the correctional work force. Conceptually, we reject the top-down perspective of the policy process, which holds that public officials can achieve routine implementation of policies through the use of bureaucratic controls and hierarchical authority. Using mixed methods and triangulation of data sources, we find that differences in organizational capacity and commitment are important determinants of why the training regimen was implemented variably across three facilities of a large correctional complex. We also find that highly committed participants find productive ways to use the training regimen which are unanticipated by those proposing the reform. Our research contributes to a growing body of inquiry which challenges routine administration and goal fidelity as appropriate constructs for studying social policy reforms.Correctional policy makers and researchers have grown increasingly skeptical about the potential of achieving meaningful reforms within institutional settings. Specifically, they argue that external environmental conditions (e.g. judicial intervention) and the internal dynamics of correctional institutions (e.g., guard discretion) render institutional reform virtually impossible (see Irwin, 1980;Fox, 1982;Jurik and Musheno, 1986). However, it is commonly accepted that U.S. correctional policy will rely on institutionalization for the foreseeable future. Thus, policy makers must intensify their search for ways to improve both inmate-client services and the CJPR, VOL. 2, NO. 2, 6/87, at Purdue University on May 31, 2015 cjp.sagepub.com Downloaded from 175 work environment of correctional institutions. Researchers can contribute tothis search by refining concepts and methods for pinpointing both barriers and pathways to institutional reforms. In this paper, we draw upon organizational behavior and diffusion of innovations literatures (see Palumbo, Maynard-Moody, and Wright, 1984;Rice and Rogers, 1980; Mohr, 1982;Musheno, Palumbo and Levine, 1976) to frame our inquiry of a western state's attempt to professionalize its correctional system. Specifically, we study the organizational diffusion of a new training regimen designed to increase professional ethics and practices among line correctional officers. As is the case in many locales, the construction of. FO #=1, a new in-service training regimen, is a core component of the reform effort (Weiner and Johnson, 1981;Jurik and Musheno, 1986).An organizational innovation approach differs substantially from the &dquo;topdown&dquo; or bureaucratic rationality model for studying the implementation of social policy reforms. The &dquo;top-down&dquo; model presumes that routine implementation of social policies is both possible and desirable (see Mashaw, 1983). Second, this perspective presumes th...
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