Public preferences for rehabilitation versus incarceration of juvenile offenders

While juvenile justice policy in the United States has become more punitive in recent years, it remains unclear whether the public actually favors this response in lieu of more rehabilitation-oriented services. Public opinion polling generally shows that the public favors less punitive responses than policymakers often suppose, but significant questions remain about the accuracy of these perceptions generally, and in how they have been assessed in particular. Data from four states (Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington) aimed at assessing public preferences for rehabilitation and incarceration as a response to serious juvenile crime indicated that, for the most part, the public was willing to pay more in taxes for rehabilitation than incarceration.     

Monetary Costs of Gender and Ethnicity Disaggregated Group-Based Offending

Research on criminal careers has examined distinct longitudinal patterns of offending across unique trajectories of offenders and a recent study has linked the costs of criminal offending imposed by these unique trajectories, with a specific focus on chronic offenders. In this study, we use longitudinal data from the Second Philadelphia Birth Cohort Study to examine the extent to which the monetary costs of crime across distinct trajectories of crime vary across both gender and ethnicity. Results indicate that male adolescent-peaked and low and high-rate chronic offending impose substantial costs, and the average costs imposed on society by one male high-rate chronic offender is greater than 1.5 million. Although female chronic offending is rarer, these female offenders still impose greater than1.5 million. Although female chronic offending is rarer, these female offenders still impose greater than 750,000 in costs on average. African-American chronic-offending costs the most of any racial/ethnic trajectory group at greater than 1.6 million on average for each chronic offender. Hispanic chronic offending on average costs slightly more than1.6 million on average for each chronic offender. Hispanic chronic offending on average costs slightly more than 200,000, and low-rate White offending costs greater than $100,000 on average. Costs also appear to peak at different ages for males and females and for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Whites. Policy implications and study limitations are also discussed.     

Effects of early family/parent training programs on antisocial behavior and delinquency

Based on evidence that early antisocial behavior is a key risk factor for delinquency and crime throughout the life course, early family/parent training, among its many functions, has been advanced as an important intervention/prevention effort. There are several theories concerning why early family/parent training may cause a reduction in child behavior problems including antisocial behavior and delinquency (and have other ancillary benefits in non-crime domains over the life course). The prevention of behavior problems is one of the many objectives of early family/parent training, and it comprises the main focus of this review. Results indicate that early family/parent training is an effective intervention for reducing behavior problems among young children, and the weighted effect size was 0.35. The results from a series of analog to the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and weighted least squares regression models (with random effects) demonstrated that there were significant differences in the effect sizes of studies conducted in the USA versus those conducted in other countries and that studies that were based on samples smaller than 100 children had larger effect sizes. Sample size was also the strongest predictor of the variation in the effect sizes. Additional evidence indicated that early family/parent training was also effective in reducing delinquency and crime in later adolescence and adulthood. Overall, the findings lend support for the continued use of early family/parent training to prevent behavior problems. Future research should test the main theories of early family/parent training and detail more explicitly the causal mechanisms by which early family/parent training reduces delinquency and crime, and future evaluations should employ high quality designs with long-term follow-ups, including repeated measures of antisocial behavior, delinquency, and crime over the life course.

Exploring the Link Between Being Bullied and Adolescent Substance Use

Although research suggests that bullied adolescents may respond to victimization with substance use, much of this prior work has been cross-sectional. Using longitudinal data from a community-based sample, we examine the impact of early bullying victimization on the initiation of substance use in adolescence after considering the potential influence of selection effects using propensity score matching. After matching, there were moderate differences between victims of bullying and control students for cigarette smoking and alcohol use, which was limited to those exposed to higher levels of bullying. Being bullied in childhood appears to have only minor effects on the onset of adolescent substance use in this sample.     

Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in Psychiatric Diagnoses and Treatment in a Sample of Serious Juvenile Offenders

Psychiatric disorder prevalence has been shown demonstrably higher among justice-involved adolescents than youth in the general population. Yet, among arrested juveniles, little is known regarding racial/ethnic differences in disorder prevalence, the role of trauma exposure in the diagnosis of behavioral disorders, or subsequent psychiatric treatment provided to adolescents with such diagnoses. The current study examines racial/ethnic disparity in psychiatric diagnoses and treatment of behavioral disorders associated with delinquency, controlling for traumatic experiences, behavioral indicators, and prior offending among serious juvenile offenders. Logistic regression is employed to explore the racial/ethnic disproportionality in behavioral disorder diagnoses and psychiatric treatment provision among 8763 males (57.7?% Black, 11.8?% Hispanic) and 1,347 females (53.7?% Black, 7.6?% Hispanic) admitted to long-term juvenile justice residential placements in Florida. The results indicate Black males are 40?% more likely, and Black females 54?% more likely to be diagnosed with conduct disorder than Whites, even upon considerations of trauma, behavioral indicators, and criminal offending. Black and Hispanic males are approximately 40?% less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than White males, with no racial/ethnic differences for females. Importantly, Black males are 32?% less likely to receive psychiatric treatment than White males, with no differences between White and Hispanic males, or any female subgroups. Traumatic exposures increased the odds of oppositional defiant disorder and ADHD, but not conduct disorder for males, though adverse childhood experiences were unrelated to behavioral disorder diagnoses among females.     

Power and Conflict in the Swiss Political Elite: An Aggregation of Existing Network Analyses

Since Kriesi's (1980) pioneering work no study has attempted to provide an overall picture of power configuration among the Swiss political elite. To fill this gap we aggregate recent network analyses carried out in various policy domains. Based on meta-hypotheses regarding the likely effects of the contextual changes that have taken place during the last thirty years, we compare the structure of the Swiss political elite existing in the 1970s to that of the last decade with respect to reputational power, collaboration and conflict. Our results suggest that important transformations have indeed occurred. Thus, both political parties and some specific state bodies could increase their power, whereas most interest groups have lost some. While the internationalization of politics has overall had the expected effects with respect to the power structure and to conflict among political parties, it did not lead to the hypothesized, new conflict among interest groups.