Countering Punitiveness: Understanding Stability in Canada's Imprisonment Rate

Canada's imprisonment rate has not changed appreciably since 1960. This stability contrasts with the increased imprisonment rates experienced by Canada's most obvious comparators—the United States and England and Wales. We examine this divergence and propose several interrelated explanations for Canada's anomalous pattern. While Canada is shown not to be immune to pressure for harsher practices and policies, it has been able to counter or balance these trends with other more moderating forces. In particular, we suggest that Canadians have largely been able to escape several of the wider forces or "risk factors" at the root of higher incarceration in other countries. Further, we suggest that certain protective factors of a historical, cultural, and structural nature can also be identified that have limited the extent to which Canada has adopted the same punitive policies documented in the United States and England and Wales.     

Prisoners’ Perceptions of Father-Child Relationships and Social Support

Incarcerated fathers (N?=?185) in a maximum security prison were interviewed about their relationship with their children and their perceptions of social support. The OLS regression on social support included the inmates?? perception of the father-child relationship and other factors (demographic, sentence, child-related, and program participation). Results indicate the fathers?? perception of the relationship with their children made a positive contribution to their appraisal of social support from all sources. ??Other?? program participation and being African American were related to the fathers?? perception of social support from others. Recommendations include using social support strategies in pre-release and post-release programs.     

Service-Seeking Behavior,Perceptions of Armed Actors,and Preferences Regarding Governance: Evidence from the Palestinian Territories

Armed non-state actors, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, are visibly engaged in providing social welfare in addition to participating in violence. A number of scholars have suggested that there is a relationship between service provision by terrorist organizations and support from service recipients, and have indicated that terrorist organizations use service provision strategically for this purpose. However, few studies have examined the experiences and opinions of service recipients themselves to understand if services do indeed influence populations' political loyalties and opinions regarding violent activities. Using data from more than 1,000 low to moderate income individuals in Palestine, this study seeks to understand if and how receiving services from a specific organization engenders loyalty to the organization, passive acceptance and/or favorable approval of the organizations' violent activities, and the likelihood of participation in the organization's violent activities. This paper explores if and how provision of aid and “governance” services by armed non-state actors is correlated with various aspects of individuals' experiences of conflict, such as their opinions about the use of violence and various strategies for attaining peace, their fellow community members' likelihood to join armed groups and engage in fighting, and their preferences regarding state structure and legal system.     

Cumulative Family Risk Predicts Increases in Adjustment Difficulties across Early Adolescence

Family is an important socialization context for youth as they move through early adolescence. A significant feature of this complex socialization context is the accumulation of potential family risk factors that may compromise youth adjustment. This study examined cumulative family risk and adolescents’ adjustment difficulties in 416 two-parent families using four waves of annual longitudinal data (51 % female youth). Risk factors in four family domains were examined: socioeconomic, parents’ psychological realm, marital, and parenting. Cumulative family risk experienced while in 6th grade was associated concurrently with daughters’ higher internalizing problems and with increased internalizing problems during early adolescence. Cumulative family risk was associated concurrently with sons’ higher externalizing problems and with daughters’ increased externalizing problems over time. Cumulative family risk was associated concurrently with lower grades and with declining grades over time for both daughters and sons. The number of risk domains also was associated with youths’ adjustment difficulties during early adolescence, providing evidence that risk in two-parent families involves more than ineffective parenting. These findings suggest a critical need to provide strong support for families in reducing a variety of stressors across multiple family domains as their children traverse early adolescence.     

Individual Differences in Adolescents’ Emotional Reactivity across Relationship Contexts

Understanding individual differences in adolescents’ ability to regulate emotions within interpersonal relationships is paramount for healthy development. Thus, the effect of individual vulnerabilities (depressive affect, social anxiety, self-blame, and coping efficacy problems) on the transmission of emotional reactivity in response to conflict from family to peers (friends and romantic partners) was prospectively examined across six waves of data in a community-based sample of 416 adolescents (M_age Wave 1?=?11.90, 51% girls). Multiple-group models estimated in structural equation modeling suggested that youth who were higher in social anxiety or coping efficacy problems were more likely to transmit emotional reactivity developed in the family-of-origin to emotional reactivity in response to conflict in close friendships. Additionally, those youth higher in self-blame and depressive affect were more likely to transmit emotional reactivity from friendships to romantic relationships.     

Harvard on China II: Logic,evidence, and ideology

Abstract

The December 1972 issue of this Bulletin contained two contributions to an ongoing debate on imperialism in Chinese history from Andrew Nathan and Joseph Esherick. This review article has the more restricted, if not more modest, aim of examining two of the most significant works cited by Nathan and Esherick, both of which have been published in the Harvard University Press's East Asian Series. The two books provide a reinforcing and complementary picture of the effects of foreign economic penetration on, respectively, the peasantry and the indigenous industrial and handicraft production of China over roughly the same time period. I will restrict myself to a critique of the internal consistency and the standards of logic and evidence in the two volumes.