A cognitive therapy treatment program for repeat DUI offenders

Driving under the influence is a devastating problem in the United States, killing almost 17,000 people in 2005. The present article describes a cognitive treatment program aimed at repeat drinking and driving offenders. Sixty-three participants were court mandated to the four-month outpatient treatment program. Before entering and after completing treatment, participants were administered self-report instruments measuring alcohol problems, readiness to change, self-esteem/efficacy, and criminal thinking patterns. Additionally, arrest histories were examined. Findings suggested that participants were characterized not only by repeated arrests, but elevated blood alcohol content and high levels of self-reported alcohol dependency and problem-drinking behaviors. The majority of clients expressed a readiness to change their drinking and driving behaviors with 87 percent graduating from the program. A DUI recidivism rate of 13 percent was found for graduates of the program at a twenty-one month follow-up. The results demonstrate that the treatment program is a valuable tool in the battle to reduce criminal recidivism.     

Men,women, and persons

Abstract. Like the rest of the work world, the Canadian public service was designed as a system of manpower utilization. Achievement in the world of work has, in industrial societies, been more than a masculine pursuit: it has been a basic criterion of manliness. It is not surprising that the civil service has refused to accept women on the same grounds as men for most of its history, nor is it surprising that some of the barriers erected in earlier years have been institutionalized in the current structure. Throughout history we have concentrated and elaborated on the differences between men and women, but the tide of social change set in motion by the industrial revolution has led to a situation where it may make life easier to stress our similarities as human beings rather than our differences as men and women. The traditional roles of women have lost much of their absorptive capacity and meaning, so more and more women will move into jobs that have in the past been defined as male. As they do so, the traditional roles of men also lose meaning: it is hard for achievement to symbolize manliness when women also achieve. But if we were to recognize that both male territory and female territory are quite limited, we could move on to the territory of common humanity and to the opportunities it offers not only to find meaning but to create it. Sommaire. Comme le reste du monde du travail, la function publique canadienne a été conçue pour être un système d'utilisation de la main-d'euvre masculine. Dans les sociétés industrielles, les réalisations dans le monde du travail ont été plus qu'une activité masculine: elles ont été Ie critère fondamental de la masculinité. Il n'est done pas surprenant que la fonction publique ait refusé d'accepter les femmes sur la même base que les hommes pendant la plus grande partie de son existence et il n'est pas étonnant non plus que certains des obstacles égés au départ aient été institutionalisés dans les structures actuelles. Pendant toute notre histoire, nous avons insisté et élaboré sur les différences entre hommes et femmes mais l'évolution sociale dont la révolution industrielle a été raponsable, a créé une situation dans laquelle la vie est simplifiée si I'on insiste sur nos similarités en tant qu'êtres humains plutôt que sur nos différences en tant qu'hommes et que femmes. Les rôles traditionnels des femmes one beaucoup perdu de leur caractère absorbant et de leur sens, et des femmes de plus en plus nombreuses occuperont des posts qui avaient été définis autrefois comme étant des occupations masculines. Du même coup, les rôles traditionnels des hommes perdent leur signification: il est difficult de faire da réalisations le symble de la masculinité lorsque les femmes en ont aussi à leur crédit. Si toutefois nous reconnaissons que le territoire masculin, comme le territoire féminin, sont très limités, nous pourrons envisager le territoire commun de l'humanité et les occasions qu'il nous offer non seulement de trouver un sens à notre vie mais de lui en donner un.     

Y-STR profiling in extended interval (> or = 3 days) postcoital cervicovaginal samples

Depending upon specific situations, some victims of sexual assault provide vaginal samples more than 36-48 h after the incident. We have tested the ability of commercial and in-house Y-STR systems to provide DNA profiles from extended interval (> or =3 days) postcoital samples. The commercial Y-STR systems tested included the AmpFlSTR Yfiler (Applied Biosystems), PowerPlex Y (Promega) and Y-PLEX 12 (Reliagene) products whereas the in-house systems comprised Multiplex I (MPI) and Multiplex B (MPB). Three donor couples were recruited for the study. Postcoital cervicovaginal swabs (x2) were recovered by each of the three females at specified intervals after sexual intercourse (3-7 days). Each time point sample was collected after a separate act of sexual intercourse and was preceded by a 7-day abstention period. As a negative control, a precoital swab was also recovered prior to coitus for each sampling and only data from postcoital samples that demonstrated a lack of male DNA in the associated precoital sample was used. A number of DNA profile enhancement strategies were employed including sampling by cervical brushing, nondifferential DNA extraction methodology, and post-PCR purification. Full Y-STR profiles from cervicovaginal samples recovered 3-4 days after intercourse were routinely obtained. Profiles were also obtainable 5-6 days postcoitus although by this stage partial profiles rather than full profiles were a more likely outcome. The DNA profiles from the sperm fraction of a differential lysis were superior to that obtained when a nondifferential method was employed in that the allelic signal intensities were generally higher and more balanced and exhibited less baseline noise. The incorporation of a simple post-PCR purification process significantly increased the ability to obtain Y-STR profiles, particularly from 5- to 6-day postcoital samples. Remarkably an 8 locus Y-STR profile was obtained from a 7-day postcoital sample, which is approaching the reported time limit for sperm detection in the cervix.     

Physician-assisted suicide in Oregon: a medical perspective

This Article examines the Oregon Death with Dignity Act from a medical perspective. Drawing on case studies and information provided by doctors, families, and other care givers, it finds that seemingly reasonable safeguards for the care and protection of terminally ill patients written into the Oregon law are being circumvented. The problem lies primarily with the Oregon Public Health Division ("OPHD"), which is charged with monitoring the law. OPHD does not collect the information it would need to effectively monitor the law and in its actions and publications acts as the defender of the law rather than as the protector of the welfare of terminally ill patients. We make explicit suggestions for what OPHD would need to do to change that.     

Changing policy and practice in the child welfare system through collaborative efforts to identify and respond effectively to family violence

The Greenbook provides a roadmap for child welfare agencies to collaborate and provide effective responses to families who are experiencing co-occurring child maltreatment and domestic violence. A multisite developmental evaluation was conducted of six demonstration sites that received federal funding to implement Greenbook recommendations for child welfare agencies. Surveys of child welfare caseworkers show significant changes in several areas of agency policy and practice, including regular domestic violence training, written guidelines for reporting domestic violence, and working closely and sharing resources with local domestic violence service providers. Case file reviews show significant increases in the level of active screening for domestic violence, although this increase peaks at the midpoint of the initiative. These findings, coupled with on-site interview data, point to the importance of coordinating system change activities in child welfare agencies with a number of other collaborative activities.     

Deficits in Behavioral Inhibition Predict Treatment Engagement in Prison Inmates

Many inmates do not respond favorably to standard treatments routinely offered in prison. Executive cognitive functioning and emotional regulation may play a key role in treatment responsivity. During intake into treatment, inmates (N = 224) were evaluated for executive functioning, emotional perception, stress reactivity (salivary cortisol), IQ, psychological and behavioral traits, prior drug use, child and family background, and criminal histories and institutional behavior. Outcome measures included program completion, treatment readiness, responsivity and gain, and the Novaco Reaction to Provocation Questionnaire. Relative deficits in behavioral inhibition significantly predicted treatment outcomes, more so than background, psychological, or behavioral variables, and other neurocognitive and emotional regulatory measures. Future replications of these results have potential to improve assessment and treatment of offenders who are otherwise intractable.     

Legal Accountability in the Service-Based Welfare State: Lessons from Child Welfare Reform

Current trends intensify the longstanding problem of how the rule of law should be institutionalized in the welfare state. Welfare programs are being redesigned to increase their capacities to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and to tailor their responses to diverse clienteles. These developments challenge the understanding of legal accountability developed in the Warren Court era. This article reports on an emerging model of accountable administration that strives to reconcile programmatic flexibility with rule-of-law values. The model has been developed in the reform of state child protective services systems, but it has potentially broad application to public law. It also has novel implications for such basic rule-of-law issues as the choice between rules and standards, the relation of bureaucratic and judicial control, the proper scope of judicial intervention into dysfunctional public agencies, and the justiciability of "positive" (or social and economic) rights.     

Mining Electronic Health Records Data: Domestic Violence and Adverse Health Effects

Intimate partner violence (IPV) often culminates in acute physical injury, sexual assault, and mental health issues. It is crucial to understand the healthcare habits of victims to develop interventions that can drastically improve a victim’s quality of life and prevent future abuse. The objective of this study is to mine de-identified and aggregated Electronic Health Record data to identify women’s health issues that are potentially associated with IPV. In this study we compared health issues of female domestic abuse victims to female non-domestic abuse victims. The Domestic abuse population contained 5870 patients, while the Non-Domestic Abuse population contained 14,315,140 patients. Explorys provides National Big Data from the entire USA. Statistical analysis identified 2429 terms as significantly more prevalent among victims of domestic abuse, compared to the general population. These terms were classified into broad categories, including acute injury, chronic conditions, substance abuse, mental health, disorders, gynecological and pregnancy related problems.