When Women Kill (SUNY series in Violence) - Hardcover

"The author has a data base that is rich in detail and unique in character. A study of this type is clearly needed and will make a major contribution to filling a void in the literature. It represents a sophisticated level of analysis on the subject of white, African American, and Latina homicide offenders." -- Paula D. McClain, Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia

The typical female homicide offender in the US is a single, thirty-one-year-old, unemployed African American mother with less than a high school education and prior arrests. So concludes Mann (criminal justice, Indiana U.-Bloomington) from her study of 296 women arrested for murder between 1976 and 1983 in the six US cities with the highest murder rates. Synthesizing quantitative and qualitative data, she describes the circumstances of the murders, the victims, the motives, and their fates in court. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.