A CROSS‐CULTURAL EXAMINATION OF THE LINK BETWEEN CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND ADOLESCENT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR*

Several studies with older children have reported a positive relationship between parental use of corporal punishment and child conduct problems. This has lead some social scientists to conclude that physical discipline fosters antisocial behavior. In an attempt to avoid the methodological difficulties that have plagued past research on this issue, the present study used a proportional measure of corporal punishment, controlled for earlier behavior problems and other dimensions of parenting, and tested for interaction and curvilinear effects. The analyses were performed using a sample of Iowa families that displayed moderate use of corporal punishment and a Taiwanese sample that demonstrated more frequent and severe use of physical discipline, especially by fathers. For both samples, level of parental warmth/control (i.e., support, monitoring, and inductive reasoning) was the strongest predictor of adolescent conduct problems. There was little evidence of a relationship between corporal punishment and conduct problems for the Iowa sample. For the Taiwanese families, corporal punishment was unrelated to conduct problems when mothers were high on warmth/control, but positively associated with conduct problems when they were low on warmtwcontrol, An interaction between corporal punishment and warmth/Wcontro1 was found for Taiwanese fathers as well. For these fathers, there was also evidence of a curvilinear relationship, with the association between corporal punishment and conduct problems becoming much stronger at extreme levels of corporal punishment. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that it is when parents engage in severe forms of corporal punishment, or administer physical discipline in the absence of parental warmth and involvement, that children feel angry and unjustly treated, defy parental authority, and engage in antisocial behavior.     

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND YOUTH GANG MEMBERSHIP: SELECTION AND SOCIALIZATION

We examine whether gang membership is associated with higher levels of delinquency because boys predisposed to delinquent activity are more likely than others to join. We use 10 years of longitudinal data from 858 participants of the Pittsburgh Youth Study to identify periods before, during and after gang membership. We build on prior research by controlling for ages and calendar time, by better accounting for gang memberships that occurred before the study began, and by using fixed effects statistical models. We find more evidence than has been found in prior studies that boys who join gangs are more delinquent before entering the gang than those who do not join. Even with such selective differences, however, we replicate research showing that drug selling, drug use, violent behaviors and vandalism of property increase significantly when a youth joins a gang. The delinquency of peers appears to be one mechanism of socialization. These findings are clearest in youth self-reports, but are also evident in reports from parents and teachers on boys' behavior and delinquency. Once we adjust for time trends, we find that the increase in delinquency is temporary, that delinquency falls to pre-gang levels when boys leave gangs.     

Building Bridges for Babies in Foster Care: The Babies Can't Wait Initiative

In 2001, the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, chaired by New York State's Chief Judge Judith Kaye, developed the Babies Can't Wait Initiative to maximize the well‐being and permanency prospects of infants in foster care. This court‐based innovation became a path to healthy development for babies in foster care, a bridge to unprecedented collaboration among the New York City Family Court, child welfare system, and service providers and merged knowledge about child development with court and child welfare practice. This article tells the story of the Babies Can't Wait Initiative—its creation, implementation, successes, and lessons.