Structured Community Activities and Moral Engagement as Deterrents to Youth Violence: a Mediation Analysis

This study assessed whether youth involvement in structured community activities (scouting, team sports, volunteer work, and church-related endeavors) and a morally engaged belief system deterred future aggressive behavior in 1170 male delinquents. It was hypothesized that moral engagement would mediate the relationship between involvement in structured community activities and aggression but involvement in structured community activities would not mediate the relationship between moral engagement and aggression. A three-wave path analysis, in which structured community activities and moral engagement were cross-lagged at Waves 0 (baseline) and 1 and correlated with aggression at Wave 2, provided support for this hypothesis. Results showed that involvement in structured community activities encouraged moral engagement, which, in turn, inhibited aggressive behavior. Consistent with previous research, a social cognitive factor (moral engagement) did a significantly better job of mediating behavior (involvement in structured community activities) than behavior did of mediating a social cognitive factor.     

A model for using time out as an intervention technique with families

Using time out to interrupt escalating conflict is an important first step in treating couples and families where physical and emotional abuse is present. Since a time out failure can jeopardize further treatment, developing effective methods for using time out is a therapeutic priority. By interpreting the family's failed attempts as skill deficits, their efforts can be reframed to facilitate their acceptance of new time out methods. These methods are integrated into a model which outlines six hierarchical levels of supplemental control needed to inhibit destructive behavior. The model provides guidelines and establishes incentives for developing a time out strategy appropriate to the family's current level of control. It is designed to guide therapists in helping families strengthen their skills and choose an alternative time out strategy when an initial method fails.     

A technology network for economic development

A technology delivery system designed to provide small and medium-sized businesses with improved access to technological resources for enhancing their productivity and competitiveness has been tested under controlled conditions in the southeastern United States. The demonstration project involved federal research laboratories, state universities, National Information Service and Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and technology users in the private sector. The results of the 18 month project are reported and assessed to identify the conditions for the establishment of a national technology network for small and medium sized firms.     

The potential for industrial policy: Lessons from the very high speed integrated circuit program

A Pentagon program to advance semiconductor technology offers some important empirical evidence for the national debate over industrial policy. While not an explicit attempt at promoting international competitiveness, the Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) program does contain a whole series of industrial policy-like features, including joint government-industry planning, widespread industry participation, and multifirm collaboration. These striking features cannot be attributed solely to VHSIC's affiliation with the military. Instead, the sources of the program's industrial policy characteristics are to be found in the nature of the technologies selected for development, the incorporation of private sector advice, the mitigation of threats to proprietary interests, avoidance of redistributional issues, and the utilization of industry competition and networks of communication-all factors directly relevant to industrial policymaking generally.     

Understanding the new context of the male sex work industry

The article reviews past and recent research on male sex work to offer a context to understand violence in the industry. It provides a critical review of research to show, first, the assumptions made about male sex workers and violence and, second, how such discourses have shaped thinking on the topic. The article presents a case study and original findings from two studies conducted by the authors in Australia and Argentina on violence in the male sex industry. Finally, the article reviews examples of legislative reforms to show how the sex industry is being regulated.     

Mapping the criminal mind: idiographic assessment of criminal belief systems

An idiographic procedure designed to assess the belief systems of criminal offenders is described, investigated, and clarified. This measure, the Cognitive Map of Major Belief Systems (CMMBS), assesses the five belief systems (self-view, world-view, past-view, present-view, future-view) held to occupy the higher echelons of human cognition. Modest to moderate test-retest reliability was achieved when 19 inmates, enrolled in one of three drug-counseling groups, completed the CMMBS on two separate occasions, 2 weeks apart. It was also ascertained that the drug treatment specialist who served as therapist for all three groups "blindly" matched the 19 CMMBS records to the inmates who produced them. A case study of one of the 19 participants was used to illustrate how the CMMBS is employed with individual offenders and how belief systems interact with major schematic subnetworks such as attributions, outcome expectancies, efficacy expectancies, goals, values, and thinking styles to create crime-supporting lifestyles.