Bonding in a High-Risk and a General Sample of Children:Comparison of Measures of Attachment and Their Relationship to Smoking and Drinking

Bonding in parent, peer, and school domains were compared in a general sample of children and a sample of children of methadone-treated parents. Bivariate comparisons revealed that children of methadone-treated parents had lower SES, and were significantly more likely to smoke cigarettes but not more likely to drink alcohol. Several measures of attachment were significantly different between the two samples across parent, peer, and school domains. Multivariate analyses indicated that the children of methadone-treated parents were more likely to smoke, even after accounting for the effects of demographic and attachment variables. For drinking, sample membership was not found to be significant. Attachment to school decreased the odds of both smoking and drinking in both samples. Peer attachment had no effect on the odds of smoking initiation; however,loyalty to best friend did predict increased odds of drinking initiation.     

Punishing Sex: Sex Offenders and the Missing Punitive Turn in Sexuality Studies

At precisely the same time that gay and lesbian activists were securing marriage rights for same‐sex couples nationwide, courts and “tough on crime” state legislatures were devising new ways to regulate sex. Despite recent estimates that over 750,000 Americans are registered sex offenders, few sexuality scholars have examined the growth of punitive policies regulating sex offenders. In this article, I draw on a unique set of data on the population of sex offenders in the United States to analyze: (1) whether recent trends in sex offender registration mirror those of corrections more generally, and (2) whether these policies disproportionally impact racial minorities. Findings reveal that sex offender registries grew dramatically between 2005 and 2013; that this growth is out of step with concurrent trends in corrections; and that black communities are disproportionately impacted. I conclude by considering whether these data reveal a new mode of “governing through crime” specifically targeting sex.

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Cultures of Public Policy Problems

This article is an essay about the construction of a culturalist theory of problem definition in the public domain. Using grid-group Cultural Theory and a typology of the structures of policy problems, questions are posed such as the following: Why do some policymakers prefer to define problems as overstructured and not understructured? May one predict that policymakers who adhere to different ways of life will prove to be more adept in solving some problem types rather than others? Renowned policy science research work suggests how each way of life corresponds to a particular problem definition strategy. Hierarchists will impose a clear structure on any problem, no matter what the cost. Isolates see social reality as an unstable casino in which any privileged problem structure jeopardizes chances for survival. Enclavists (or egalitarians) will define any policy problem as an issue of fairness and distributive justice. Individualists will exploit any bit of usable knowledge to improve a problematic situation. These four focal strategies are part of repertoires of problem definition strategies, where each cultural solidarity type disposes of a differentially composed set of secondary strategies. Finally, it is suggested that the links between group-grid Cultural Theory and policy problem types may serve the practitioner as analytic tool for active and (self-) critical problem structuring and (re)framing.     

New alleles and mutational events at 14 STR loci from different German populations

The molecular origin of DNA mutations and the mutation rates were analyzed at 14 short tandem repeat (STR) loci with samples from trio cases derived from 10 different German population samples. STR loci comprised of D2S1360, D3S1744, D4S2366, D5S2500, D6S474, D7S1517, D8S1132, D10S2325, D12S391, D18S51, D19S246, D20S480, D21S226, and D22S689. In a total of 488 meioses, 16 isolated genetic inconsistencies in 8 different STRs were observed, whereas no mutations were found at the other loci. The data of five mutations suggested the presence of silent or null alleles due to sequence variation in primer binding site. This could be confirmed for four suspected cases by the use of alternative primer sets and by DNA sequence analyses. Furthermore, this study revealed nine new allelic variants at five different loci.     

Benford's Law for Quality Assurance of Manner of Death Counts in Small and Large Databases

To assess if Benford's law, a mathematical law used for quality assurance in accounting, can be applied as a quality assurance measure for the manner of death determination. We examined a regional forensic pathology service's monthly manner of death counts (N = 2352) from 2011 to 2013, and provincial monthly and weekly death counts from 2009 to 2013 (N = 81,831). We tested whether each dataset's leading digit followed Benford's law via the chi‐square test. For each database, we assessed whether number 1 was the most common leading digit. The manner of death counts first digit followed Benford's law in all the three datasets. Two of the three datasets had 1 as the most frequent leading digit. The manner of death data in this study showed qualities consistent with Benford's law. The law has potential as a quality assurance metric in the manner of death determination for both small and large databases.