Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Depressive Symptoms During Middle Adolescence: A Longitudinal Analysis

Previous research has shown a consistent positive association between non-suicidal self-injury and depressive symptoms. However, the direction of the effects has not been examined. To understand whether non-suicidal self-injury predicts depressive symptoms or vice versa, we examined the relations between non-suicidal self-injury and depressive symptoms across three waves of self-report data collected 1 year apart from 506 Swedish adolescents (47 % girls; M age = 13.21; SD = .57) who were attending 7th grade at the onset of the study. The results suggest that depressive symptoms predict increases in non-suicidal self-injury 1 year later between the first and second waves of the study. Between the second and third waves of the study depressive symptoms and non-suicidal self-injury were significantly correlated indicating co-occurrence with no direction of effect rather than depressive symptoms predicting non-suicidal self-injury or vice versa. Group comparisons revealed no differences for boys and girls. The findings help clarify the relationships between non-suicidal self-injury and depressive symptoms during middle adolescence.     

A Political Science of Punishment: Francis Lieber and the Discipline of American Prisons

This article examines the history of political science in relation to the history of the prison. It considers how theories of the state in political science have assumed that proper states should punish with prisons, and traces these ideas to the work of Francis Lieber, the first academic political scientist in the USA. Because his ideas about prison reform were central to his conceptualization of the discipline as a science of punishment, his theory of the state is an understudied part of the history of mass incarceration. Lieber argued that the state had a moral duty to punish its citizens with the prison, and an obligation to manage the risks of democracy through the prison's principles of scientific certainty, less eligibility, and disciplinary solitude. By examining the life and work of Francis Lieber, this article offers new ways of thinking about political science's past, and its status as part of the history of the American prison.     

Strikes are more common in countries with majoritarian electoral systems

Strikes are more common in those OECD countries where the legislature is elected in single member districts (SMD) than in those where it is elected by proportional representation (PR). Furthermore, more working days are lost due to industrial conflict in countries with SMD. I suggest a politico-economic explanation for these rarely noticed empirical regularities. Further empirical testing – including controls drawn from previous strike research – reveals that they hold up in a variety of econometric specifications.     

The impact of child support enforcement policy on nonmarital childbearing

The interaction of welfare and child support regulations has created a situation in which child support policy's incentives that discourage unwed fatherhood tend to be stronger than its incentives that encourage unwed motherhood. This suggests that more stringent child support enforcement creates incentives that reduce the likelihood of nonmarital childbearing, particularly among women with a significant chance of needing public assistance in the event of a nonmarital birth and their male partners. We investigate this hypothesis with a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44 before marriage and during periods of non‐marriage following divorce or widowhood. The estimates indicate that women living in states with more effective child support enforcement are less likely to bear children when unmarried, especially if they are young, never‐married, or black. The findings suggest that improved child support enforcement may be a potent intervention for reducing nonmarital childbearing. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Expert Testimony Pertaining to Battered Woman Syndrome: Its Impact on Jurors' Decisions

Participants (N = 200) were presented with a criminal homicide trial involving a battered woman who had killed her abuser. Within the trial, both the response history (passive, active) and presence of expert testimony pertaining to battered woman syndrome (present, absent) were systematically varied. As well, half of the participants in each of these conditions were provided with a nullification instruction informing them that they were free to disregard the law and acquit should a strict application of the law result in an unjust verdict. Results indicated that, compared to the passive response condition, the mock jurors were no less receptive to the expert testimony in the active response condition. The impact of the testimony on participants' verdicts, however, was moderated by the nullification instruction. That is, although the presence of the testimony did result in greater verdict leniency, this only occurred when the mock jurors had been released from a strict application of the law. The implications of these findings are discussed.