Predicting future smoking of adolescent experimental smokers

This prospective study examined the usefulness of seven selected variables from Jessor and Jessor's problem behavior theory in predicting the future smoking levels of adolescent experimental smokers. Experimental smokers were identified through a survey of 2,550 seventh- and eighth-grade students assessing subjects' current smoking levels as well as subjects' responses to the selected variables. Twelve months later the entire sample was resurveyed to assess subsequent smoking levels of subjects initially reporting experimental smoking. Experimental smokers who responded to both surveys (n=225) were subjects of the present study. The full model discriminant function was significant in discriminating between the two groups; 68% of the subjects were correctly classified. This moderately successful hit rate was 24% better than what could be expected by chance. Increased smokers had lower expectations for academic achievement, had stronger beliefs about the positive functions of smoking, and perceived more smoking among their classmates and close friends. Educational interventions are suggested.Received Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1987. Research interests include human behavior change strategies.Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois in 1968. Research interests include behavior and health.     

Rethinking the Probative Value of Evidence: Base Rates,Intuitive Profiling,and the “Postdiction” of Behavior

It is argued that American courts may be routinely admitting evidence with little to no probative value and great potential for prejudicial impact. This may be particularly likely with regard to what is essentially intuitive profiling or stereotype related evidence, defined herein as evidence suggesting that the defendant (or other party), or his (her) behavior, fits intuitive profiles (or stereotypes) of the type of person likely to commit the crime or behavior in question. In other words, intuitive profiling evidence is admitted to postdict behavior. Formal empirically based profiling evidence (testimony regarding the fit of a defendant's characteristics or behaviors to formal or scientific profiles of the typical perpetrator of the crime in question for use to prove guilt is inadmissible in American courts. However, we suggest that everyday use of informal intuitive profiles underlies both judicial determinations of probative value diagnosticity, and thus admissibility, of evidence, and jurors' use of the evidence in determining guilt. Demonstrations of the use of base rate information to evaluate the probative value of such intuitive profiling evidence both as evidence of guilt and as evidence of innocence are provided. Demonstrations of both how to evaluate the actual probative value of evidence (when all necessary values are known), and the theoretical limit of its probative value (in circumstances where some values are not known) are provided. It is argued that such evaluations may provide the basis for (1) support of motions to either admit or to exclude evidence, (2) testimony to the jury to help them weigh or interpret evidence, (3) exculpatory profiling (profiling evidence of innocence), (4) pretrial research to establish probative versus prejudicial value of evidence, and (5) sufficiency analyses to determine maximum likelihood of guilt, given multiple items of evidence. Among these, the first two are considered most important, as it can be demonstrated that many profiling characteristics currently admitted in trial (such as evidence of battery to support a murder charge) are not probative of guilt.     

The Myth of Personal Security: Criminal Gangs, Dispute Resolution, and Identity in Rio de Janeiro's Favelas

This article examines the politics of how drug traffickers resolve disputes and maintain order in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Much popular discourse and some scholarly studies argue that drug traffickers play a major role in controlling crime and minimizing conflicts there. This article shows that traffickers enforce community norms under a variable political calculus in which well-connected and respected residents are less likely to be punished for rule violations than are individuals who are marginal to the life of the community. This allows many favela residents who conform to local norms to feel a degree of control over their own safety, a "myth of personal security" in otherwise violent neighborhoods.     

Vulnerability to Friends’ Suicide Influence: The Moderating Effects of Gender and Adolescent Depression

This paper examines whether severity of depression reduces or intensifies the relationship between friends’ suicide attempt and adolescent's own attempt to commit suicide, and whether there are gender differences in this interrelationship. Using logistic regression and data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents studied at 2 points in time, this study yielded significant findings. First, friends’ suicide attempt and adolescent depression each predicts adolescent's own attempt to commit suicide, and these effects are similar for both boys and girls. Second, highly depressed adolescents are less likely than low- or nondepressed adolescents to attempt suicide when their friends attempt suicide, and this relationship is observed mainly among adolescent boys. Finally, for adolescent girls, depression reduces the relationship between friends’ suicidal attempt and adolescent's own attempt but this effect is not statistically significant. These results are discussed in light of their theoretical importance and policy implications.Professor of Sociology at San Diego State University. Has published in the areas of crime/delinquency, drug use/abuse, intergenerational processes, and psychosocial stress. Recent publications have appeared in Western Criminology Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, Sociological Inquiry, Journal of Adolescent Research, and Youth and Society.     

Struggling through the web of impunity—The Jorge Carpio Nicolle case

Through the lens of Guatemala’s Jorge Carpio Nicolle case I analyze the mechanisms that preserve impunity in Latin American nations struggling to emerge from violent conflict and embrace, the rule of law. I reveal how the infective influence of parallel powers, the ineffectiveness of the judicial process, and obstructive legal doctrine destroy domestic efforts to prosecute those responsible for human rights violations. The Carpio case exposes the role of international courts in providing justice when domestic courts fail to do so, and it demonstrates the importance of human rights groups in pursuing this justice. The author would like to thank Roxanna Altholz, Adriana Beltran, and Soraya Long for their invaluable assitance in conducting this research.     

Citizenship: Towards a feminist synthesis

A synthesis of rights and participatory approaches to citizenship, linked through the notion of human agency, is proposed as the basis for a feminist theory of citizenship. Such a theory has to address citizenship's exclusionary power in relation to both nation-state ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’. With regard to the former, the article argues that a feminist theory and politics of citizenship must embrace an internationalist agenda. With regard to the latter, it offers the concept of a ‘differentiated universalism’ as an attempt to reconcile the universalism which lies at the heart of citizenship with the demands of a politics of difference. Embracing also the reconstruction of the public-private dichotomy, citizenship, reconceptualized in this way, can, it is argued, provide us with an important theoretical and political tool.     

Social Support, Risk-Level and Safety Actions Following Acute Assessment of Suicidal Youth

The purpose of the pilot study was to examine the interrelationship between social support, risk-level, and safety actions for 2 groups of suicidal adolescents (50 attempters and 50 ideators), who had presented for an acute assessment at an outpatient mental health service. A social support model was proposed in which it was thought that information related to patients' social support would impact upon the types of risk-level and safety actions made by clinicians. Data was collected from a total of 100 patient files, utilizing the acute assessment reports (e.g., reports assessing risk of self-harm). Findings show that groups differed significantly on indices of negative support severity, positive support, and risk-level. Limited support was found for the proposed social support model. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.