The Role of Violent Media Preference in Cumulative Developmental Risk for Violence and General Aggression

The impact of exposure to violence in the media on the long-term development and short-term expression of aggressive behavior has been well documented. However, gaps in this literature remain, and in particular the role of violent media exposure in shaping violent and other serious antisocial behavior has not been investigated. Further, studies of violent media effects typically have not sampled from populations with confirmed histories of violent and/or nonviolent antisocial behavior. In this study, we analyzed data on 820 youth, including 390 juvenile delinquents and 430 high school students, to examine the relation of violent media use to involvement in violence and general aggression. Using criterion scores developed through cross-informant modeling of data from self, parent/guardian, and teacher/staff reports, we observed that childhood and adolescent violent media preferences contributed significantly to the prediction of violence and general aggression from cumulative risk totals. Findings represent a new and important direction for research on the role of violent media use in the broader matrix of risk factors for youth violence.

‘The perfect equality of all persons before the law’: the Personal Rights Association and the discourse of civil rights in Britain, 1871–1885

The Personal Rights Association was established in 1871 to watch, restrain and influence legislation ‘in matters affecting the personal rights and liberties of the people’. Though initially its remit was to scrutinise legislation for terms that would be prejudicial to women, this soon extended to criticism of increasing incursions into male freedom. The PRA's membership, which comprised both sexes, included a cohort of male parliamentarians and intellectuals who took their commitment to civil liberties into the heart of government. Classified by one critic as ‘fussy busy-bodies [and] fourth-rate politicians’, this article reveals a ‘feminisation’ of these elite men hardly considered in the rhetoric of the middle-class radical.     

Rural and Non-Rural African American Youth: Does Context Matter in the Etiology of Problem Behaviors?

The current study provides new information on the etiology of adolescent problem behaviors in African American youth by testing the importance of known predictors, namely parenting measures (monitoring, support, and communication), peers, and neighborhood characteristics across rural and non-rural developmental contexts. More specifically, the study examined whether rural versus non-rural developmental contexts moderated the relationships between known predictors and a variety of problem behaviors (alcohol use, drug use, delinquency, and violence). Data were collected from N = 687 rural and N = 182 non-rural African American adolescents (mean age = 15.8 years). Findings indicate that both parenting constructs and peer deviance had significant effects on problem behaviors and that these effects were consistent across rural and non-rural developmental contexts. The study results are discussed in terms of their implications for ecological frameworks for testing problem behavior etiology.

Resisting Removal: The Impact of Community Mobilization in Rio de Janeiro

The experiences of communities in Rio de Janeiro under threat of removal through gentrification or mega‐event construction present an opportunity to review the process and impact of urban community mobilization. This article assesses the determinants of community strategies, the challenges to implementation, and the impact of mobilization on outcomes for such communities. It reviews the case of Vila Autódromo, detailing the dynamic influence of both rational expectations and the “right to the city” ideology in developing resistance strategies and providing evidence to confirm the importance of social capital and civic capacity for community efficacy. The analysis updates theorizing beyond the politics of clientelism and contributes to understanding how the urban regime approach may apply to the Latin American context, while demonstrating the continued relevance of the political opportunity structure for determining policy outcomes.