Sexual predator civil commitment: a comparison of selected and released offenders

This study compared two groups of sex offenders who were considered for civil commitment under Florida's Jimmy Ryce Act: Two hundred twenty-nine sex offenders who were recommended by forensic evaluators to be civilly committed and 221 sex offenders who were recommended for release. It was hypothesized that selected offenders would be more likely to display risk factors for sex offense recidivism than those who did not meet criteria. Data analyses revealed that selected offenders, as a group, scored significantly higher on actuarial risk assessment instruments. There were also significant differences between the groups on other risk factors that have been empirically correlated with sexual recidivism. Selected offenders had higher frequencies of paraphilia diagnoses and antisocial personality. These findings supported the hypotheses and suggested that evaluators are correctly selecting for civil commitment those sex offenders who have a mental abnormality predisposing them to sexual violence and who are at higher risk for reoffense.     

Characteristics of individuals petitioned for civil commitment

This article explores the demographic and criminal characteristics of a group of sex offenders currently residing in a facility for civilly committed sex offenders. Legal and clinical records were used and data coded. This sample is compared to published data on a group of civilly committed sex offenders in another state. Results indicated that there were numerous similarities and some differences between the two groups. Further research needs to be conducted on civilly committed sex offenders in other states to better understand this population.     

Timing of menarche and initial menstrual experience

This study sought to compare the relative importance of subjective and objective timing of menarche for initial menstrual experience. Objective timing is defined as when an event occurs relative to a person's actual chronological age. Subjective timing is when a life event occurs relative to social norms for the timing of its occurrence, and has been cited as being of importance in determining the events' psychological significance. In this study, college women completed a survey in which they recorded their age at menarche, an estimate of the number of their peers reaching menarche before them, and their memory of their initial experience of menstruation, on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (completely positive) to 7 (completely negative). The assumption was that girls who reported early menarche in relation to peers subjectively experienced themselves as early maturers, the converse being true for girls reporting late menarche. Since a curvilnear relationship between subjective timing and objective timing has been reported for girls by other studies, linear relationships were not considered; instead, a chisquare analysis and a measure of the relative strength of each relationship were performed on the date, the results indicating that subjective timing was significantly related to menarcheal experience, but objective timing was not, with girls who experienced themselves as early remembering a more negative menarche than girls who experienced themselves as "on time" or late. The results validate the importance of the concept of "social clocks" in adolescent development and suggest that future studies of the importance of pubertal timing should include measures of subjective as well as objective timing.     

Designing Public Participation: Managing Problem Settings and Social Equity

Researchers suggest that inequity and disparities in public participation in the policy‐making process will go hand in hand unless public managers and community leaders are attentive to these concerns when they are designing participation opportunities. Previous research has considered how the design of participatory opportunities can address inequity, but it has provided few insights into what is behind design choices. This article provides a theoretical framework that links public managers' and community leaders' perspectives on their own political efficacy and sources of their efficacy, yielding four types of “designers.” The research hypothesizes that these types have different narratives of social equity in participation that affect their design choices. Data from more than 100 public managers and community leaders provide preliminary support for these relationships. Findings suggest that inequitable public participation will persist unless designers consider what is behind their choices, focusing first on understanding the problem setting, or their narrative of equity in public participation.     

Will More Black Cops Matter? Officer Race and Police‐Involved Homicides of Black Citizens

In response to police‐involved homicides of black citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere, some have suggested that more black police officers could reduce the number of these events. The authors offer an empirical test of this assertion. The literature offers conflicting expectations: some studies suggest that increased representation reduces discrimination, while others suggest that it increases discrimination. The authors reconcile these perspectives using the concept of critical mass, which leads to the expectation that an increase in black officers will reduce the number of black citizens killed in encounters with police, but only once the proportion of black officers is sufficiently large. We test this expectation in analyses of recently compiled data on police‐involved homicides in 2014 and 2015 in large U.S. cities.     

The historical contribution of faith-based health providers in the Ecuadorian health system: an overview of the evidence

ABSTRACT

Faith-based health providers (FBHPs) have historically shaped the national health system in Ecuador, yet there is little robust evidence of this role, or their current contribution to the national health system. This article situates FBHPs in the Ecuadorian health system, using secondary analyses of national health surveys to consider changes in contribution from 1998 to 2014, and synthesising this with secondary literature. The research confirms the important role that FBHPs have historically played in Ecuador, but also shows that their current role needs to be better understood if universalisation of health service coverage is to be achieved.     

Adjustment Correlates of Social Media Engagement Among Early Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Social media engagement is common among adolescents, yet not all adolescents use social media in the same ways or experience the same adjustment correlates. This...     

Informant Discrepancies in Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in an At-Risk Sample: The Role of Parenting and School Engagement

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - A number of studies have used variable-centered approaches to examine informant discrepancies on children’s behavior problems; however, few such studies...