Organizational Readiness for Change in Correctional and Community Substance Abuse Programs

Significant needs exist for increased and better substance abuse treatment services in our nation's prisons. The TCU Organizational Readiness for Change (ORC) survey has been widely used in community-based treatment programs and evidence is accumulating for relationships between readiness for change and implementation of new clinical practices. Results of organizational surveys of correctional counselors from 12 programs in two states are compared with samples of community-based counselors. Correctional counselors perceived strong needs for new evidence-based practices but, compared to community counselors, reported fewer resources and less favorable organizational climates. These results have important implications for successfully implementing new practices.     

Undiagnosed, untreated acute promyelocytic leukemia presenting as a suspicious sudden death

Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia frequently associated with clotting abnormalities and severe hemorrhagic diathesis. The disease is associated with a high incidence of early fatal hemorrhage. We report the sudden death of a 40-year-old male without significant medical history in which foul play had been initially suspected. A thorough postmortem investigation performed on the decedent lead to the diagnosis of APL. Cause of death was a cerebellar hematoma. Underlying APL should be considered in the differential diagnosis when unexplained bleeding is encountered in a decedent. This case emphasizes the value of routinely collecting bone marrow during an autopsy to enable accurate testing and diagnosis.     

Yield and turnover of illicit indoor cannabis (Cannabis spp.) plantations in Belgium

In prosecution, Belgian judiciary currently uses outdated yield figures (28.1g per plant, sold at € 3/g at grower level) for fining illicit indoor cannabis plantations. Using state-of-the-art cultivation techniques, our growth experiments showed that yield is better expressed in g/m(2) cultivated surface area rather than in g per plant, and that yield varies significantly between different cannabis strains. It was found that the lower-bound of the one-sided 95% confidence interval of the yield of an indoor cannabis plantation can be set at 575 g/m(2). Prices and pricing mechanisms were investigated using interviews with respondents selected through snowball sampling. Results reveal that (i) the Belgian cannabis market chain is highly complex; (ii) unit prices are predominantly determined by transaction sizes; but also (iii) a set of product- and socially-related price-fixing mechanisms have an equally important role. At grower level, respondents reported prices for 1 g of dry cannabis buds to range € 3.00-4.25.     

Creating a Commercia Civilization

正Business ties contribute to the development of a new type of Sino-U.S.great-power relationship By Patrick Mendis U.S.President Barack Obama’s vision for better relations with China is based on a time-tested commercial foundation.To enhance his Asia"pivot"strategy and the TransPacific Partnership(TPP)plan,then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched the"100,000 Strong"educational exchange initiative for American students to study in China.     

Real interest rate persistence in South Africa: evidence and implications

The real interest rate is a very important variable in the transmission of monetary policy. It features in vast majority of financial and macroeconomic models. Though the theoretical importance of the real interest rate has generated a sizable literature that examines its long-run properties, surprisingly, there does not exist any study that delves into this issue for South Africa. Given this, using quarterly data (1960:Q2-2010:Q4) for South Africa, our paper endeavors to analyze the long-run properties of the ex post real rate by using tests of unit root, cointegration, fractional integration and structural breaks. In addition, we also analyze whether monetary shocks contribute to fluctuations in the real interest rate based on test of structural breaks of the rate of inflation, as well as, Bayesian change point analysis. Based on the tests conducted, we conclude that the South African EPPR can be best viewed as a very persistent but ultimately mean-reverting process. Also, the persistence in the real interest rate can be tentatively considered as a monetary phenomenon.     

Psychopathic traits and offending trajectories from early adolescence to adulthood

Purpose

Measures of adolescent psychopathy have yet to be examined in offending trajectory studies. This may explain why identifying etiological differences between individuals following high-rate and moderate-rate offending trajectories has remained elusive. The current study used the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) to examine psychopathic traits and offending trajectories within a sample of incarcerated offenders.

Methods

Convictions were measured for Canadian male (n = 243) and female (n = 64) offenders at each year between ages 12 and 28. Semi-parametric group based modeling identified four unique trajectories: adolescence-limited (AL) (27.3% of sample), explosive-onset fast desister (EOFD) (30.6%), high-rate slow desister (HRSD) (14.6%), and high frequency chronic (HFC) (27.5%).

Findings

Both a three and a four factor model of psychopathy were tested, and both factor structures were positively and significantly associated with the HRSD and HFC trajectories. Regarding individual factors of psychopathy, the ‘Antisocial’ factor of the PCL:YV was the only individual dimension significantly associated with membership in high-rate compared to moderate-rate offending trajectories.

Conclusions

Psychopathic traits appear more commonly present amongst individuals who follow chronic versus moderate offending trajectories. Implications for early intervention and risk management of offenders are discussed.     

The persistence of early childhood physical aggression: Examining maternal delinquency and offending,mental health,and cultural differences

Purpose

To examine the persistence of physical aggression in preschoolers and associated correlates (i.e., socio-demographic, socioeconomic, criminality, parenting practices, maternal mental health).

Methods

One-year follow-ups are completed with 240 mothers and their preschool children (boys and girls) from the Vancouver Longitudinal Study on the Psychosocial Development of Children. A series of structural equation models are examined.

Results

Maternal psychological symptoms, juvenile delinquency, and adult offending are associated with higher levels of physical aggression in their offspring. Children of non-Caucasian mothers and those born outside of North are less physically aggressive. Cultural differences in the correlates of physical aggression were identified.

Conclusions

Maternal past delinquency, current adult offending, and mental health are important factors in the development of children’s physical aggression. The findings suggest that there are multiple pathways leading to chronic physical aggression, which may be culturally-based. Cultural differences should be taken into account when developing programs and intervening with families of children with behavioral problems.     

Offending and Early Death in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Criminal offending has many negative outcomes. Researchers have recently begun to consider the impact offending has on offenders' health, with a few studies focusing on differential mortality risk. Yet, prior research has been limited due to selective samples, restricted range of follow-up time period, limited set of explanatory variables, and lack of theoretical guidance. This paper examines the risk of early death among 411 South London males in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development followed into their late 50s. Attention is paid not only to differential risk of death between nonoffenders and offenders, but also to the risk within the population of offenders and through consideration of theoretical frameworks and associated predictor variables. Results show that high-rate chronic offenders evince the highest risk of death, an effect that continues even after controlling for childhood individual and environmental risk factors as well as participation in a range of analogous behaviors.     

Identity as Dependent Variable: How Americans Shift Their Identities to Align with Their Politics

Political science generally treats identities such as ethnicity, religion, and sexuality as “unmoved movers” in the chain of causality. I hypothesize that the growing salience of partisanship and ideology as social identities in the United States, combined with the increasing demographic distinctiveness of the nation's two political coalitions, is leading some Americans to engage in a self-categorization and depersonalization process in which they shift their identities toward the demographic prototypes of their political groups. Analyses of a representative panel data set that tracks identities and political affiliations over a 4-year span confirm that small but significant shares of Americans engage in identity switching regarding ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and class that is predicted by partisanship and ideology in their pasts, bringing their identities into alignment with their politics. These findings enrich and complicate our understanding of the relationship between identity and politics and suggest caution in treating identities as unchanging phenomena.