The Allen priority/consequence model as a behavioral approach to reduction of high risk behavior in youth

Youth violence in America has grown to insurmountable levels. Homicide is now the third leading cause of death for youth ages 5–14, the second leading cause of death for those ages 15–24 and the number one cause of death among black males ages 15–34. With increased levels of violence and senseless killings across the nation, there is a need to explore behavioral and environmental causes of high risk behavior and various types of interventions to decrease antisocial behavior. Violence prevention should be approached comprehensively from a myriad of approaches and levels of prevention and intervention that should infiltrate individuals, homes, schools, communities and systems.

Numerous types of theories are being designed, implemented and evaluated to decrease and prevent unhealthy behaviors. While there is a need to continue to refine intervention and containment strategies, a preventative approach to addressing root causes of antisocial behaviors needs to be considered as we comprehensively look at interventions for violence prevention. The purpose of this article is to add to the body of research a theory, the Priority/ Consequence model, which depicts interrelated dynamic behavioral and societal variables that can influence, positively or negatively, attitudes, values and beliefs that establish prioritized behaviors that produce consequences.     

The Anti-Axial Age

Karl Jaspers famously characterized the period from the beginning of the eighth to the end of the third century before Christ as an “Axial Age” in which intellectual freedom and creativity blossomed as never before. This article argues that it was followed, five hundred years later, by an “Anti-Axial Age”, which devised a novel formula for intellectual and political repression. Its essence was the state’s capture of the millenial narrative, which had first been developed as religious doctrine within Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Involving the two great classical empires of Western Eurasia, Persia and Rome, and then empowering the expansion of Islam, the Anti-Axial Age left an ideological legacy that continues to haunt the contemporary world.     

Police Perceptions of Irrational Unstable Behaviours and Use of Force

Police identification of people experiencing mental illness is usually based on either the person having an official contact history with police or through observing behavioural indicators commonly associated with mental illness during an encounter. Police have voiced concerns with their ability to identify and respond to people experiencing mental illness in a timely way and report that they commonly resort to more coercive tactical options to resolve encounters. The present study employed a mixed method design to examine 286 police use of force incidents to investigate the association between force used on and by offenders displaying irrational-unstable behavioural characteristics. The irrational-unstable offenders were two times more likely to be perceived by police to have an apparent mental disorder and almost four times more likely to have a known mental health history; one in six had an official record of contact with mental health services. There were few differences in police and offender use of force, considering force as both a categorical and a continuous variable, while incident-level comparisons suggested that police force was generally proportional to offender resistance. Implications are discussed in terms of the need to redress limitations with the traditional police approach style.     

On Jordan Peterson,Postmodernism, and PoMo-Bashing

Jordan Peterson says that postmodernists say no interpretation is better than another. I would no sooner identify Peterson’s adversaries as those who have been misled by “postmodernism” than I would identify them as misled by “sustainability,” “diversity,” “multiculturalism,” or “intersectionality.” Such fare is mainly symptomatic. “Postmodern” invocations are often like “sustainability” invocations: inessential. This piece is not a defense of postmodernism. It is a critique of PoMo-bashing.