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An understanding of personal choice is commonly based in a conception of rationality or rational choice

he central points of this theory are: (1) The human being is a rational actor, (2) Rationality involves an end/means calculation, (3) People (freely) choose all behavior, both conforming and deviant, based on their rational calculations, (4) The central element of calculation involves a cost benefit analysis: Pleasure versus Pain, (5) Choice, with all other conditions equal, will be directed towards the maximization of individual pleasure, (6) Choice can be controlled through the perception and understanding of the potential pain or punishment that will follow an act judged to be in violation of the social good, the social contract, (7) The state is responsible for maintaining order and preserving the common good through a system of laws (this system is the embodiment of the social contract), (8) The Swiftness, Severity, and Certainty of punishment are the key elements in understanding a law's ability to control human behavior.

Years from now, when socialist historians of the future examine the dead carcass of US capitalism, they will pay special attention to the growing barbarism of the penal system in the late 20th century. While most attention will obviously be paid to the reintroduction of the death penalty and a racist judicial system that incarcerates minorities disproportionately, there will also have to be close look at the tendency to treat mentally ill people as common criminals.

The insanity defense was first used in the case of an 1843 assassination attempt on British Prime Minister Robert Peel by a psychotic individual named Daniel M'Naghten. When a physician testified that M'Naghten was insane, the prosecution agreed to stop the case and the defendant was declared insane despite protests from Queen Victoria and the House of Lords.

But a study ordered in 2005 by Judge Nancy Gertner (D. Mass.) found that wealthier towns with few minority residents did a better job of keeping accurate residency lists than more diverse communities. The result: a higher percentage of jury summonses sent to minorities came back as undeliverable or went unanswered.

“The perception of fairness counts. A white jury may be fair, but a non-white defendant likely will think ‘the jurors can’t be fair because they don’t understand me.’”

esearch from Tufts University indicates that diverse groups perform better than homogenous groups when it comes to decision making and that this is due largely to dramatic differences in the way whites behave in diverse groups--changes that occur even before group members begin to interact.

In a study involving 200 participants on 29 mock juries, panels of whites and blacks performed better than all-white groups by a number of measures. "Such diverse juries deliberated longer, raised more facts about the case, and conducted broader and more wide-ranging deliberations," said Sommers. "They also made fewer factual errors in discussing evidence and when errors did occur, those errors were more likely to be corrected during the discussion."

"Diverse groups show a number of advantages and benefits when it comes to this type of decision making."

"is sit down and look through cases where the criminals had been arrested. I listed how old [the perpetrators] were, whether they were male or female, their level of education. Did they come from broken families? Did they have school behavioral problems? I listed as many factors as I could come up with, and then I added them up to see which were the most common."

"The basic premise is that behavior reflects personality," explains retired FBI agent Gregg McCrary. In a homicide case, for example, FBI agents glean insight into personality through questions about the murderer's behavior at four crime phases:Antecedent: What fantasy or plan, or both, did the murderer have in place before the act? What triggered the murderer to act some days and not others?Method and manner: What type of victim or victims did the murderer select? What was the method and manner of murder: shooting, stabbing, strangulation or something else?Body disposal: Did the murder and body disposal take place all at one scene, or multiple scenes?Postoffense behavior: Is the murderer trying to inject himself into the investigation by reacting to media reports or contacting investigators

Among those in the profiling field, the tension between law enforcement and psychology still exists to some degree. "The difference is really a matter of the FBI being more oriented towards investigative experience than [academic psychologists] are," says retired FBI agent McCrary.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration."

The prevailing rule of thumb used to be that the older the child, the more difficult the moving experience will be.

Moving does not have to be traumatic for your children, however; there are many things that you can do as a parent to help reduce the impact for them, right from the moment you share the news with them.

Capote became especially close to Smith, whose lonely childhood, physical self-consciousness, and artistic aspirations resonated with the writer.

Capote’s meticulous research—he had even befriended the murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, for five years before their execution in 1965—resulted in a literary landmark.

Frankenstein continually views the monster as an ongoing experiment. This encourages a feeling of ostracization and contempt in the monster

he monster never experienced true growth with a mother and/or father.

wants to be accepted by his creator, and when he does not receive this acceptance, he desires a female companion, perhaps as a direct result of the lack of a mother figure in his life.

disfigured monsters with severe abnormalities

child grows up knowing her mother is her sister

child knows it is the twin of a dead brother or sister

Mary Shelley seems not to condemn the act of creation but rather Frankenstein's lack of willingness to accept the responsibility for his deeds. His creation only becomes a monster at the moment his creator deserts it (1)

Frankenstein warns of the careless use of science -

Readers get the distinct feeling that Victor's inquisitive nature causes his emotional and physical peril because he cannot balance his intellectual and social interactions.

The bounds that Frankenstein transgresses are those of obedience to community. He makes himself a monster in two senses. The price is death not only for himself but for his family and potentially all humanity.

However, acting in sharp contrast to the rationality of Enlightenment literature, the Gothic atmosphere of Frankenstein rejects the scientific objectivity of modern science fiction in its sense of the strange and the irrational.