Commentary on Foubert, Godin, & Tatum (2010): the evolution of sexual violence prevention and the urgency for effectiveness

Foubert, Godin, and Tatum describe qualitative effects among college men of The Men's Program, a one-session sexual violence prevention program. This article and the program it describes are representative of many sexual violence prevention programs that are in practice and provide an opportunity for a brief discussion of the development and evaluation of sexual violence prevention approaches. In this commentary, we will focus on two considerations for an evolving field: the adherence to the principles of prevention and the use of rigorous evaluation methods to demonstrate effectiveness. We argue that the problem of sexual violence has created urgency for effective prevention programs and that scientific and prevention standards provide the best foundation to meet this need.     

Staying Cool Across the First Year of Middle School

As students transition into middle school they must successfully negotiate a new, larger peer context to attain or maintain high social standing. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which the maintenance, attainment, and loss of a cool status over the course of the sixth grade is associated with student and classroom levels of physical, verbal, and relational aggression. To address this goal, we studied a sample of 1985 (55% girls) ethnically diverse adolescents from 99 sixth grade classrooms in the United States. Attaining a cool status at any point across the school year was associated with stronger aggressive reputations. Additionally, classroom norms for aggressive behavior moderated the association between changes in aggression over the school year and the stability of coolness such that students who maintained their coolness across the school year showed greater increases in their verbally aggressive reputations from fall to spring when they were in classrooms with higher levels of aggression. The findings illustrate the importance of fitting in with social norms for maintaining a high social status among a new set of peers in middle school.     

Examining the Influence of Family Environments on Youth Violence: A Comparison of Mexican,Puerto Rican,Cuban, Non-Latino Black,and Non-Latino White Adolescents

Existing research rarely considers important ethnic subgroup variations in violent behaviors among Latino youth. Thus, their risk for severe violent behaviors is not well understood in light of the immense ethnic and generational diversity of the Latino population in the United States. Grounded in social control theory and cultural analyses of familism, we examine differences in the risk for severe youth violence, as well its associations with family cohesion, parental engagement, adolescent autonomy, household composition, and immigrant generation among Mexican (n = 1,594), Puerto Rican (n = 586), Cuban (n = 488), and non-Latino Black (n = 4,053), and White (n = 9,921) adolescents with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results indicate a gradient of risk; White youth had the lowest risk for severe violence and Puerto Rican youth had the highest risk compared to all other racial/ethnic subgroups. Within-group analysis indicates that family factors are not universally protective or risk-inducing. While family cohesion decreased the risk of severe violence among all groups, parental engagement was associated with increased risk among Blacks and Whites, and adolescent autonomy was associated with increased risk among Puerto Ricans and Cubans. In addition, Cuban and White adolescents who lived in single parent households or who did not live with their parents, had higher risk for severe violent behaviors than their counterparts who lived in two parent households. Among Latinos, the association of immigrant generation was in opposite directions among Mexicans and Cubans. We conclude that family and immigration factors differentially influence risk for violence among Latino subgroups and highlight the significance of examining subgroup differences and developing intervention strategies that are tailored to the needs of each ethnic subgroup.     

Defining a Moment in History: Parent Communication with Adolescents About September 11, 2001

Parents play an important role in helping their children process and interpret significant sociohistorical events. However, little is known about how parents frame these experiences or the specific social, cultural, and civic messages they may communicate about the event. In this study, we examined self-reported communication of parents from six communities in the United States with their adolescents about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Parents’ (N = 972) open-ended responses about September 11th were analyzed to assess whether communication with their adolescents occurred and for thematic content. Results revealed marked variability in parents’ communication and suggest that many parents used September 11th as an opportunity to impart sociocultural, emotional, and civic messages. Identifying the diversity in parents’ responses aligns with the tenets of Terror Management Theory and provides insights into the roles of parents in translating pivotal historical moments. Collectively, these findings yield important implications for civic socialization.     

Geographies of Crime and Justice: Contemporary Transitional Justice and the Creation of 'Zones of Impunity'

This article explores some of the challenges that transnationalcrimes pose to the operation of transnational justice. By transnationalcrimes, we mean serious violations of international human rightsand humanitarian law that transcend national borders and areperpetrated by state or non-state actors. Many national andinternational legal mechanisms may only address a segment ofthese crimes, creating what we refer to as ‘zones of impunity.’This article examines how these dilemmas are unfolding in threeAfrican contexts: the possibility that Charles Taylor is triedfor crimes in Sierra Leone but not in Liberia; that only Congolese,and not Rwandans or Ugandans, face prosecution for crimes inIturi or elsewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo; or thatJoseph Kony escapes prosecution in Uganda through being allowedamnesty or exile in Sudan. Our analytic framework considershow geography and politics affect legal responses to transnationalcrimes.     

EU update

This is the latest edition of Baker & McKenzie’s column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside websites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

The effect of post-identification feedback, delay, and suspicion on accurate eyewitnesses

We examined whether post-identification feedback and suspicion affect accurate eyewitnesses. Participants viewed a video event and then made a lineup decision from a target-present photo lineup. Regardless of accuracy, the experimenter either, informed participants that they made a correct lineup decision or gave no information regarding their lineup decision. Immediately following the lineup decision or after a 1-week delay, a second experimenter gave some of the participants who received confirming feedback reason to be suspicious of the confirming feedback. Following immediately after the confirming feedback, accurate witnesses did not demonstrate certainty inflation. However, after a delay accurate witnesses did demonstrate certainty inflation typically associated with confirming feedback. The suspicion manipulation only affected participants' certainty when the confirming feedback created certainty inflation. The results lend support to the accessibility interpretation of the post-identification feedback effect and the erasure interpretation of the suspicion effect.     

创新制度 优化机制 实现警力无增长改善

近年来,公安工作形势日趋严峻,工作任务不断增多扩展,且复杂性和艰巨性也与日俱增,警力不足的矛盾则更为突出和加剧。有限的警力编制增量不能从根本上缓解警力不足的矛盾。因此,必须通过多种渠道和方法使警察机关和警察队伍在警务工作中发挥出更大效能。立足学校自身,深入分析影响学校发展升级和警力资源改善的瓶颈问题,从创新与完善学校管理体制、完善师资队伍结构和激励机制、进一步拓宽和创新进人渠道和用人方式、加快信息化校园建设等方面入手,努力实现警力无增长改善的目标。