A meta-analysis update on the effectiveness of early self-control improvement programs to improve self-control and reduce delinquency

Objective

To update Piquero et al.’s (Justice Quarterly 27:803–834, 2010) meta-analysis on early self-control improvement programs.

Methods

Screening of eligible studies was carried out for the period between January 2010 and September 2015. An additional seven studies were identified, which were added to the original database of 34 studies, totaling an overall sample of 41 eligible studies. A random effects model was used to obtain an overall mean effect size estimate. Additional analyses were performed to assess publication bias and moderation.

Results

Overall average, positive, and significant effect sizes were observed for improving self-control (0.32) and reducing delinquency (0.27). There was evidence of publication bias for the self-control improvement outcomes, as well as some evidence of moderation for both self-control improvement and delinquency outcomes.

Conclusions

Early self-control improvement programs are an effective evidence-based strategy for improving self-control and reducing delinquency.

     

Criminal Justice System Involvement Among Homeless Adults

This study characterized the specific offenses for which homeless individuals are arrested and incarcerated. Data were gathered from 581 homeless adults across 6 Oklahoma City shelters. Participants were asked to self-report incarceration history, nights spent in jails and prisons, and the offenses for which they were arrested. Overall, 76% of the sample had ever been arrested. Fifty-seven percent of the sample had been to jail more than 3 times in their lifetime and 13% had ever intentionally been arrested. The most prevalent type of arrest was drug possession (35%), followed by driving under the influence (31%) and disorderly conduct or public drunkenness (28%). Violent arrests, such as assault, robbery, domestic violence, murder, and rape, were the least prevalent type of arrest. In summary, offenses were largely drug and status offenses. These offenses may be prevented through increased substance use treatment accessibility and availability of housing. Policies to increase employment and housing for homeless adults regardless of criminal history should be expanded to reduce the occurrence of justice involvement.     

Geopolitical transformation in rural Mexico: toward new social and territorial boundaries in an indigenous municipality of central Mexico.

After decades of being one of the most loyal and reliable sources of PRI electoral votes, rural Mexico has become the arena of partisan political competition. The increasing political party rivalry in rural areas is not only related to a legal or formal institutional transformation at the national or sub-national level but to the ejido endogenous reconfiguration. Today local interest groups and supporters of opposition political parties are challenging the once hegemonic ejido authority, associated with the PRI regime, which since 1930 has ruled most Mexican rural villages. The ejido as a political institution is yielding many of its political functions to the empowered municipal government. As I will show in this paper, a major transition in rural Mexico is well under way, moving from agrarian toward municipal governance. The new political order challenges the ethnic and territory boundaries associated with the ejido rule forged in rural Mexico during the post-revolutionary era.     

Gendered Academic Adjustment among Asian American Adolescents in an Emerging Immigrant Community

Research on the academic adjustment of immigrant adolescents has been predominately conducted in large cities among established migration areas. To broaden the field’s restricted focus, data from 172 (58% female) Asian American adolescents who reside within a non-traditional or emerging immigrant community in the Southeastern US were used to examine gender differences in academic adjustment as well as school, family, and cultural variables as potential mediators of gender differences found. Results suggest that girls report significantly higher educational goals, intrinsic academic motivation, and utility value of school compared to boys. These gender differences are statistically mediated by ethnic exploration and family processes, most prominently, family respect. School connectedness and perceived discrimination are also associated with academic adjustment at the bivariate level, suggesting that academic success may be best promoted if multiple domains of influence can be targeted.     

The convergent bribe

This essay is an analysis of drawing up a social menu based entirely on goods provided by the state. We make the unavoidable assumption that all voters vote for a specific menu combination on the argument used by J. K. Arrow to prove the voting paradox or voting impossibility. However, what is possible, though not inevitable, is to obtain a maximum or a second-best by allowing some groups to bribe others into accepting a given combination. This will lead to successive sequences of voting until the desired number of sub-combinations is reached. The bribes are thus purposeful, constituting a convergent ordinal chain.     

Why Listening to Children and Young People is Important in Family Justice

During the last 30 years, there has been a growing body of evidence indicating that children and young people often feel marginalized when their parents are making critical decisions that will shape their young lives, and they are calling for family justice professionals to hear their voices. This article explores the research evidence, examines the relevant theories about child development, and demonstrates how a focus on age‐related competency fails to take account of children's subjective meanings about their lives. The authors consider a model of participation first designed to understand adult participation in government and show how this can be usefully applied to understanding children's participation in family justice.     

Asia-Pacific news

This column provides a country by country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

Internal factors of intermunicipal cooperation: what matters most and why?

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the internal aspects of intermunicipal cooperation, providing a new and innovative approach to the cost effectiveness of municipal waste management. We examine a sample of 658 municipalities in the Czech Republic’s South Moravian Region and 205 cooperating municipalities separately during 2012–2014. The results, based on ordinary least-squares regression, show that cost reduction is significantly influenced by the institutional arrangement of intermunicipal cooperation, the participation of municipal representatives in management, and professional managers. The paper shows that a crucial role in cost reduction is played by internal factors that have been investigated only marginally so far. Cost increases are related to municipality sizes larger than 10,000 inhabitants and to profit-oriented behaviours of waste collection companies. The results differ in the size samples of municipalities; only the impact of institutional arrangement is significant in all groups of municipalities.     

Precursors to femicide: Guatemalan women in a vortex of violence

Today women in Guatemala are killed at nearly the same rate as they were in the early 1980s when the civil war became genocidal. Yet the current femicide epidemic is less an aberration than a reflection of the way violence against women has become normalized in Guatemala. Used to re-inscribe patriarchy and sustain both dictatorships and democracies, gender-based violence morphed into femicide when peacetime governments became too weak to control extralegal and paramilitary powers. The naturalization of gender-based violence over the course of the twentieth century maintained and promoted the systemic impunity that undergirds femicide today. By accounting for the gendered and historical dimensions of the cultural practices of violence and impunity, we offer a re-conceptualization of the social relations that perpetuate femicide as an expression of post-war violence.     

Response to Clea Bunch's Review of Engaging Iran

President Ronald Reagan's White House leaned toward Baghdad during the Iran–Iraq War because it sought to prevent an Iraqi defeat. Though the White House deemed Iraqi chemical weapons use abhorrent, it found the implications of an Iranian victory or expanded Soviet influence in the Middle East far more alarming. Newly released documents from the Iraqi state archives now allow an exploration of the chemical weapons controversy from both Iraqi and American perspectives. This evidence, along with sources from American archives, demonstrates that Washington and Baghdad had radically different assessments of the Iran–Iraq War. American officials hoped to mould Iraq into a useful ally, but Saddam interpreted American support as subterfuge. Saddam's hostile view of American intentions indicates that Washington had less influence over Iraqi behaviour during the 1980s than both contemporary American officials and many scholars writing since have realised. To insist that Washington could have deterred Iraqi chemical weapons use overstates American clout.