Prostitute women have the highest homicide victimization rate of any set of women ever studied. We analyzed nine diverse homicide data sets to examine the extent, trends, and perpetrators of prostitution-related homicide in the United States. Most data sources substantially under-ascertained prostitute homicides. As estimated from a conservative capture-recapture analysis, 2.7% of female homicide victims in the United States between 1982 and 2000 were prostitutes. Frequencies of recorded prostitute and client homicides increased substantially in the late 1980s and early 1990s; nearly all of the few observed pimp homicides occurred before the late 1980s. These trends may be linked to the rise of crack cocaine use. Prostitutes were killed primarily by clients, clients were killed mainly by prostitutes, and pimps were killed predominantly by pimps. Another conservative estimate suggests that serial killers accounted for 35% of prostitute homicides. Proactive surveillance of, and evidence collection from, clients and prostitutes might enhance the investigation of prostitution-related homicide.
Is it useful to think of green chemists and engineers in terms of social movement theory?The authors provide an overview of the field of green chemistry and draw on concepts from social movement theory to analyze the developments in green chemistry. They then probe some of the problems that political progressives would face in trying to cooperate with green chemists. They close by linking their analysis to questions concerning governance of technological innovation. They find that green chemistry may be closer to business-as-usual than to a radical departure. Environmentalists might investigate the prospects for cooperation with green chemists in pushing toward a benign chemical regime. Whether green chemistry constitutes the elite movement that the authors have been investigating in this article is less important than whether those with expertise in benign chemical synthesis have insights that the rest of the environmental movement ought to be pursuing more diligently.
In an effort to move social justice issues higher on R&D policy-making agendas, we ask whether new technoscientific capacities introduced into a non-egalitarian society tend disproportionately to benefit the affluent and powerful. To demonstrate plausibility of the hypothesis, we first review examples of grossly non-egalitarian outcomes from military, medical, and other R&D arenas. We then attempt to debunk the science-inequity link by looking for substantial categories where R&D is conducive to reducing unjustified inequalities. For example, R&D sometimes enables less affluent persons to purchase more or better goods and services. Although the case for price-based equity proves weaker than normally believed, R&D targeted towards public goods turns out to offer a reasonable chance of equity enhancement, as do several other potentially viable approaches to science policy. However, major changes in science-policy institutions and participants probably would be required for R&D to serve humanity equitably.
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