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.

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The completion of the second year of the Colorado Springs Study provided new insights into the location of HIV infection in a large urban social network. About 250 persons were interviewed by the end of the second year and provided information on over 3500 reported social relationships. Roughly 2000 persons were found to be part of a core connected region which included six individuals confirmed HIV positive. The density of social ties in this core region was about 0.01. The average number of steps (along shortest paths) between HIVinfected persons and others in connected core of this large urban social network was quite small (between 4 and 6). Some implications of the observations are discussed. When individuals are connected together to form large social networks, the concepts and methods of network analysis can lead to a better understanding of factors affecting the spread of infectious agents transmitted in the course of close or intimate personal contact. A better understanding of the factors involved, in turn, can lead to more effective disease control strategies (Klovdahl, 1985).

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