Cumulative exposure to stressful life events and male gang membership

In this article, the authors examine risk factors that predict gang membership among a cohort of South Florida boys. Using both prospective and retrospective data, the authors evaluated the role of early exposure to stressful life events in predicting joining a gang, controlling for other risk factors. The analysis revealed that while cumulative preteen stress exposure was not found to be a significant predictor of gang membership, the association between such exposure and the dependent variable might be mediated through other factors. A subsequent analysis of associations with gang members/gang-like behavior revealed a similar pattern—race, family financial problems, and preteen cumulative exposure to stressful life events were each found to predict association/behavior and involvement with gangs.     

Canada's Foreign Investment Review Agency and the direct investment process in Canada

Abstract: Canada's Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA) has been the focus of continued public policy debate over the years. Supporters have argued that FIRA enhances the economic benefits of inward direct investment, while detractors complain that the agency discourages such investment. The thesis of this paper is that, notwithstanding the heat generated by the debate, relatively little light has been shed on the economic effects of FIRA. This is primarily because participants in the debate have failed to recognize that FIRA'S economic impacts should be examined within a general equilibrium framework. Furthermore, many of the indirect effects of FIRA'S review process are not observable in the simple statistics on acceptance or rejection rates. The purpose of this paper is to identify the important potential direct and indirect effects of FIRA on the Canadian economy, and (through the evaluation of relevant statistical data) to speculate about the relative importance of these effects. Our conclusion is that FIRA has probably imposed net costs on the Canadian economy, although the sources of these costs are subtle and the magnitudes difficult to document. Sommaire: L'Agence d'examen de l'investissement étranger du Canada (AEIE) se trouve au centre d'un débat de politique publique qui se poursuit depuis des années. Ses partisans prétendent que l'AEIE rehausse les avantages économiques de l'investissement direct intésieur, tandis que ses détracteurs accusent l'Agence de décourager un tel investissement. Le prérsent article démontre qu'en dépit de la passion que suscite le débat, le public est assez mal informé sur les effets économiques de l'AEIE. Et ceci provient essentiellement du fait que les participants au débat ne reconnaissent pas que l'impact économique de l'AEIE devrait être examiné dans un cadre dyéquilibre général. De plus, nombreux sont les effets indirects du processus d'examen de l'AEIE que l'on ne peut déceler en analysant de simples statistiques sur les pourcentages d'approbation ou de désapprobation. Cet article a pour but de déterminer les importants effets potentiels, directs et indirects, de l'AEIE sur l'économie canadienne et, grâce à l'évaluation de données statistiques pertinentes, de spéculer sur l'importance relative de ces effets. En conclusion, l'auteur déduit que l'AEIE a sans doute imposéà l'économie canadienne une contrainte qui se chiffre par des coûts nets, bien qu'il soit assez difficile de documenter l'origine et l'ampleur de ces coûts.     

The Direct and Indirect Effects of Offender Drug Use on Federal Sentencing Outcomes

Objectives

The federal sentencing guidelines constrain decision makers’ discretion to consider offenders’ life histories and current circumstances, including their histories of drug use and drug use at the time of the crime. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that judges are required to take the offender’s drug use into account in making bail and pretrial detention decisions and the ambiguity inherent in decisions regarding substantial assistance departures allows consideration of this factor. In this paper we build upon and extend prior research examining the impact of an offender’s drug use on sentences imposed on drug trafficking offenders.

Methods

We used data from three U.S. District Courts and a methodologically sophisticated approach (i.e., path analysis) to test for the direct and indirect (i.e., through pretrial detention and receipt of a substantial assistance departure) effects of an offender’s drug use history and use of drug at the time of the crime, to determine if the effects of drug use varies by the type of drug, and to test for the moderating effect of type of crime.

Results

We found that although the offender’s history of drug use did not affect sentence length, offenders who were using drugs at the time of the crime received longer sentences both as a direct consequence of their drug use and because drug use at the time of the crime increased the odds of pretrial detention and increased the likelihood of receiving a substantial assistance departure. We also found that the effects of drug use varied depending on whether the offender was using crack cocaine or some other drug and that the type of offense for which the offender was convicted moderated these relationships.

Conclusions

Our findings illustrate that there is a complex array of relationships between drug use and key case processing decisions in federal courts.     

Feasibility of a computerized intervention for offenders with substance use disorders: a research note

Objectives

Despite evidence that treatment is effective in reducing recidivism among inmates with substance use problems, scarce resources mean that few of those in need of treatment actually receive it. Computerized substance abuse interventions could be used to expand access to treatment in prisons without placing an undue burden on resources. The major aim of the study was to compare treatment conditions in terms of their service utilization, skills acquisition, and treatment satisfaction.

Methods

The study recruited men and women with substance use disorders from 10 prisons in 4 states. In an open label clinical trial, 494 subjects were randomly assigned either to the Experimental condition, a computerized drug treatment intervention, the Therapeutic Education System (TES; n?=?249), or to the Control condition, Standard Care (n?=?245). Chi-square tests compared groups on categorical variables and independent samples t tests were used for interval level continuous variables.

Results

Initial evidence demonstrated: (1) comparable group rates of session attendance and high rates of TES module completion for experimental subjects; (2) comparable group gains in the development of coping skills; and (3) a more favorable view of TES than of Standard Care.

Conclusions

Collectively, these results show that a computerized intervention, such as TES, can be implemented successfully in prison. Given the barriers to the delivery of substance abuse treatment typically encountered in correctional settings, computerized interventions have the potential to fill a significant treatment gap and are particularly well suited to inmates with mild to moderate substance use disorders who often are not treated.     

Immigrant sexual citizenship: intersectional templates among Mexican gay immigrants to the USA

Existing literature on sexual citizenship has emphasized the sexuality-related claims of de jure citizens of nation-states, generally ignoring immigrants. Conversely, the literature on immigration rarely attends to the salience of sexual issues in understanding the social incorporation of migrants. This article seeks to fill the gap by theorizing and analyzing immigrant sexual citizenship. While some scholars of sexual citizenship have focused on the rights and recognition granted formally by the nation-state and others have stressed more diffuse, cultural perceptions of community and local belonging, we argue that the lived experiences of immigrant sexual citizenship call for multiscalar scrutiny of templates and practices of citizenship that bridge national policies with local connections. Analysis of ethnographic data from a study of 76 Mexican gay and bisexual male immigrants to San Diego, California, reveals the specific citizenship templates that these men encounter as they negotiate their intersecting social statuses as gay/bisexual and as immigrants (legal or undocumented); these include an ‘asylum’ template, a ‘rights’ template, and a ‘local attachments’ template. However, the complications of their intersecting identities constrain their capacity to claim immigrant sexual citizenship. The study underscores the importance of both intersectional and multiscalar approaches in research on citizenship as social practice.     

Co-operation,Contestation and Complexity in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform

ABSTRACT

Security Sector Reform (SSR) remains a key feature of peacebuilding interventions and is usually undertaken by a state alongside national and international partners. External actors engaged in SSR tend to follow a normative agenda that often has little regard for the context in post-conflict societies. Despite recurrent criticism, SSR practices of international organisations and bilateral donors often remain focused on state institutions, and often do not sufficiently attend to alternative providers of security or existing normative frameworks of security. This article provides a critical overview of existing research and introduces the special issue on ‘Co-operation, Contestation and Complexity in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform’. We explore three aspects that add an important piece to the puzzle of what constitutes effective SSR. First, the variation of norm adoption, norm contestation and norm imposition in post-conflict countries that might explain the mixed results in terms of peacebuilding. Second, the multitude of different security actors within and beyond the state which often leads to multiple patterns of co-operation and contestation within reform programmes. And third, how both the multiplicity of and tension between norms and actors further complicate efforts to build peace or, as complexity theory would posit, influence the complex and non-linear social system that is the conflict-affected environment.