Linking parental incarceration and family dynamics associated with intergenerational transmission: A life‐course perspective*

Children experiencing parental incarceration face numerous additional disadvantages, but researchers have often relied on these other co‐occurring factors primarily as controls. In this article, we focus on the intimate links between crime and incarceration, as well as on the broader family context within which parental incarceration often unfolds. Thus, parents’ drug use and criminal behavior that precedes and may follow incarceration periods may be ongoing stressors that directly affect child well‐being. We also use our analyses to foreground mechanisms associated with social learning theories, including observations and communications that increase the child's risk for criminal involvement and other problem outcomes. These related family experiences often channel the child's own developing network ties (peers, romantic partners) that then serve as proximal influences. We explore these processes by drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from a study of the lives of a sample of respondents followed from adolescence to young adulthood, as well as on records searches of parents’ incarceration histories. Through our analyses, we find evidence that 1) some effects attributed to parental incarceration likely connect to unmeasured features of the broader family context, and b) together parental incarceration and the broader climate often constitute a tightly coupled package of family‐related risks linked to intergenerational continuities in criminal behavior and other forms of social disadvantage.     

Validity of Demirjian and Willems methods for dental age estimation for Malaysian children aged 5–15 years old

BackgroundOne of the most commonly used method for dental age assessment is the method reported by Demirjian and coworkers in 1973. It was later modified by Willems and coworkers whereby they “performed a weighted ANOVA” in order to adapt the scoring system.AimTo evaluate the applicability of Demirjian and Willems methods for dental age estimation for Malaysian children and to correlate the accuracy of the findings with the chronology of tooth development of premolars and second molars.Materials and methodsA total of 991 dental panoramic radiographs of 5–15-year-old Malaysian children were included in the study. The mean Demirjian and Willems estimated ages were compared to the mean chronological age.ResultsThe mean chronological age of the sample was 10.1 ± 2.8 and 9.9 ± 3.0 years for males and females respectively. Using the Demirjian method, the mean estimated dental age was 10.8 ± 2.9 years for males and 10.5 ± 2.9 years for females. For Willems method, the mean estimated age was 10.3 ± 2.8 years males and 10.0 ± 3.0 years respectively.ConclusionsWillems method was more applicable for estimating dental age for Malaysian children. Overestimation in Demirjian method could be due to advanced development of second bicuspids and molars.     

Associations Between Caregiver Support, Bullying, and Depressive Symptomatology Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Girls: Results from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey

Although sexual minority (SM) youth are at an increased risk for being bullied and experiencing depression, it is unclear how caregiver support is interrelated with those variables. Therefore, we sought to assess: (a) the prevalence of nonphysical bullying, depressive symptomatology, and caregiver support among heterosexual and SM girls, (b) the association between caregiver support and bullying in both groups, and (c) whether sexual orientation moderates the interactive effect of caregiver support and bullying on depressive symptoms. Data come from a survey of students in 22 Boston public high schools; 99 of the 832 girls in the analytic sample were SM. We used chi-square statistics to examine group differences, and multiple regression to estimate the association between the caregiver support, sexual orientation, being bullied, and depressive symptomatology. SM girls reported similar levels of caregiver support as heterosexual girls, but reported higher levels of depressive symptomatology. They were also more likely to report nonphysical bullying. Tests for interactions were not statistically significant, suggesting that bullying, caregiver support, and sexual orientation are independently associated with depressive symptomatology.     

The detection of multiply charged dyes using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry for the forensic examination of pen ink dyes directly from paper

Abstract:  Laser desorption mass spectrometry (LDMS) is emerging as a technique for questioned document examination. Its use is limited to detecting ink dyes that are neutral or singly charged. Several inks contain dyes that are multiply charged and LDMS cannot be employed for their identification. We have successfully detected >20 polyionic dyes that can be used in the manufacture of inks using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) MS, directly from paper, with the matrix, 2-(4-hydroxyphenylazo)benzoic acid (HABA), and the additive, diammonium hydrogen citrate (DAHC). For example, Acid Violet 49, a charged dye containing one positively-charged site and two negatively charged sulfonate groups, cannot be detected by LDMS, but forms intact, singly charged ions in the MALDI MS experiment. The method described is also useful for identifying multiply charged dye mixtures that are used in modern pen inks.     

iFairness – Constructing fairness in IT (and other areas of) law through intra- and interdisciplinarity

As information and communication technologies have gradually invaded every aspect of our daily lives, the body of law that we call IT law has not only expanded, but it also pushes traditional areas of law to become more tech-savvy. This article makes a plea for a more intra- and interdisciplinary approach towards developing the future IT law, on the one hand, and towards educating the future IT lawyer, on the other hand. It substantiates the need for lawyers from different fields and non-lawyers to engage in a constructive dialogue when determining, interpreting and enforcing fairness standards in contemporary and future IT law, and outlines directions for integrating such dialogue in university curricula.     

Introduction to session 2: Magnitude of the crisis: The fiscal and human costs

Abstract

Many are looking to California and its state housing law for advice on how to deal with the affordability challenges affecting many metropolitan areas throughout the nation. It is thus critically important to go beyond the laws themselves and examine how state and municipal governance structure affects affordability, supply, and production. Some states give broad freedom to localities to develop policies that can potentially meet a range of goals and objectives. Others directly undermine those efforts by limiting local ability to pursue policy reforms while simultaneously failing to engage on the state level.

The redefinition of federalism on the national level, coupled with continued resistance to growth from some localities, establishes the state as at least an equal partner in dealing with housing supply and affordability issues. Understanding these distinctions is important, and the housing community needs to take them into account as it moves on the state front.     

Women in contemporary Soviet society

What enables democracies to succeed has much in common with what enables other forms of modern rule to succeed: notably the capacity for effective military selfdefence and the reasonably efficient functioning of a domestic economy. When the factors favouring the success of any form of modern regime are broken down, most of them may readily be secured for a time under autocratic rule, and none is strucurally ensured by democratic rule. At present there is good reason to believe that the special advantages of democratic rule - above all the heuristic merits of open and competitive political deliberation - at least offset the inherent disadvantages long ago identified by its enemies. The distinctive preconditions for the success of democratic regimes are furnished, if at all, only by the workings of democracy itself. They are both instances and products of success in learning how to live freely as, and within, a large collectivity. That outcome can be menaced or precluded by the causal properties of ill-conceived institutions. But it can only be brought about by free and practically intelligent political action. This is a task for citizens and career politicians, not a potential gift from the social sciences.     

Civil liberties and the left

Mzwanele Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa. Monthly Review Press: New York. 1996. pp. 288. (foreword by Mel King)

Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England, Edited by Susan D. Amussen and Mark A. Kishlansky. (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995)

Modernization and the Production of Power

Kevin A. Yelvington, Producing Power: Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in a Caribbean Workplace (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 286 pp.

Milagros Pena, Theologies and Liberation in Peru: The Role of Ideas in Social Movements (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 222 pp.

Partha Chatterjee (ed), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 220 pp.

Carol A. Breckenridge (ed.), Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in South Asia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 261 pp.

Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right‐Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995. pp. 445. $19.95.)