Promoting Stability for Youth Returning from Residential Care: Attorney Perspectives

Aftercare services have been suggested to improve reintegration for youth departing residential care programs. The purpose of this study was to collect views from legal professionals about the challenges youth and families face during reintegration and solutions to improve stability. Views were collected from 14 legal professionals (e.g., guardian ad litem, legal counsel) through a survey and 90‐minute nominal group technique focus group. Results indicated parent expectations about re‐entry and lack of services, supports and resources were challenges. Solutions suggested by participants included family, mental health and educational supports, and transition planning. Study limitations and future implications are discussed.     

Backups and the right to be forgotten in the GDPR: An uneasy relationship

The recent enforcement of the GDPR has put extra burdens to data controllers operating within the EU. Beyond other challenges, the exercise of the Right to be Forgotten by individuals who request erasure of their personal information has also become a thorny issue when applied to backups and archives. In this paper, we discuss the GDPR forgetting requirements in respect with their impact on the backup and archiving procedures stipulated by the modern security standards. We specifically examine the implications of erasure requests on current IT backup systems and we highlight a number of envisaged organizational, business and technical challenges pertained to the widely known backup standards, data retention policies, backup mediums, search services, and ERP systems.     

Familial Sex Trafficking of Minors: Trafficking Conditions,Clinical Presentation,and System Involvement

It is well documented in the literature that child sex trafficking can be perpetrated by family members, though limited research has focused on describing this type of sexual exploitation. This pilot study addresses this gap by providing an analysis of familial sex trafficking considering trafficking dynamics, and rurality. Using a sample of 31 child welfare-involved children referred for behavioral health assessment and treatment, this mixed methods study explores: (1) victim and trafficker characteristics, the trafficking situation, law enforcement classifications of trafficking, clinical profiles of victims, and system involvement of children and youth involved in familial sex trafficking; (2) gender differences in clinical outcomes in sex-trafficked children; and (3) geographical differences in severity of the victimization experience. Major findings document high rates of family members trafficking children for illicit drugs; high severity of abuse as measured with the Sexual Abuse Severity Score, with higher severity of abuse for children living in rural communities; clinical threshold level scores on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC-A). Boys and girls had similar clinical profiles except boys had higher CBCL externalizing scores, and females had higher TSCC depression scores. Additionally, more than half of the children in this sample had attempted suicide in their lifetime. This formative study sheds light on the phenomenon of familial sex trafficking, thereby creating the context for further investigations. Implications for identification and effective responses to familial sex trafficking, with specific attention to gender and geography are discussed.     

Do they Aggress Earlier? Investigating the Effects of Ego Depletion on Police Officers’ Use of Force Behavior

Endowed with the state monopoly on the legitimate use of even potentially lethal force, it is intolerable for police officers to act outside the governing legal and ethical framework. At the same time, officers are expected to exert self-control and refrain from excessive use of force when they deal with provocative and perilous situations. This study sought to investigate corresponding self-control and self-control failures through the role of ego depletion in the decision to use force by police officers. Two experiments were conducted using officers from a German State Police force, requiring the participants to use force against a provocative role player. Experiment 1 found that the ego depletion measure failed and there were no differences between the groups. Using a different ego depletion method, experiment 2 found that ego-depleted participants aggressed earlier than controls. These results indicate that circumstances that produce ego depletion could lead to the inappropriate use of force through reducing self-control. This has major implications for the police use of force and how we understand police officers’ decision-making in response to provocation.     

Violence and personality in forensic patients: is there a forensic patient-specific personality profile?

Concerning the discussion about the connection of personality traits, personality disorders, and mental illness, this study focused on the personality profiles of male forensic patients, prison inmates, and young men without criminal reports. The main topic centered on group-specific personality profiles and identifying personality facets corresponding with mental illness. The authors therefore used the Rasch model-based Trier Integrated Personality Inventory. They individually tested 141 German forensic patients with different crime backgrounds, 122 prison inmates, and 111 soldiers of the German army. Within group differences they found that the individuals with mental retardation differ from patients with a personality disorder or psychosis. Patients with mental retardation displayed higher neurotic and/or paranoid personality accents and tended to be low organized and self-confident.     

What a girl's gotta do: the labor of the biopolitical celebrity in austerity Britain

This article debunks the widespread view that young female celebrities, especially those who rise to fame through reality shows and other forms of media-orchestrated self-exposure, dodge “real” work out of laziness, fatalism, and a misguided sense of entitlement. Instead, the authors argue that becoming a celebrity in a neoliberal economy such as that of the United Kingdom, where austerity measures disproportionately disadvantage the young, women, and the poor, is not as irregular or exceptional a choice as previously thought, especially since the precariousness of celebrity earning power adheres to the current demands of the neoliberal economy on its workforce. What is more, becoming a celebrity involves different forms of labor that are best described as biopolitical, since such labor fully involves and consumes the human body and its capacities as a living organism. Weight gain and weight loss, pregnancy, physical transformation through plastic surgery, physical symptoms of emotional distress, and even illness and death are all photographically documented and supplemented by extended textual commentary, usually with direct input from the celebrity, reinforcing and expanding on the visual content. As well as casting celebrity work as labor, the authors also maintain that the workings of celebrity should always be examined in the context of wider cultural, social and real economies.     

The case for fairness

and also serves as study director of the Committee on the Performance of Military Personnel. She has co-edited (with Wendell R. Garner) Ability Testing: Uses, Consequences, and Controversies.     

Autosomal microsatellite data from Northwestern Colombia

Allele frequencies and some forensic parameters for 12 autosomal microsatellites (CSF1PO, TPOX, THO1, VWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, D5S818, F13A1, FESFPS, F13B, LPL) were estimated from three departments from Northwestern Colombia. The total number of samples analysed was 1045 individuals. Comparative analysis among the three studied departments and with other published Colombian populations were also performed and discussed.