Life Events and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents: Do Ecological Domains and Timing of Life Events Matter?

Considerable research has documented associations between adverse life events and internalizing symptoms in adolescents, but much of this research has focused on the number of events experienced, with less attention to the ecological context or timing of events. This study examined life events in three ecological domains relevant to adolescents (i.e., family, peers, themselves) as predictors of the course of depressive symptoms among a community epidemiologically defined sample of 419 (47.2% females) urban African American adolescents. Given that youth depressive symptoms change over time, grade level was examined as a moderator. For males, the strength of associations between life events happening to participants, family life events, and peer life events and depressive symptoms did not change from grades 6–9. For females, the strength of the association between peer life events and depressive symptoms did not change over time, but the strength of associations between life events happening to participants and family life events and females’ depressive symptoms decreased over time. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Psychological Symptoms Linking Exposure to Community Violence and Academic Functioning in African American Adolescents

African American adolescents are exposed disproportionately to community violence, increasing their risk for emotional and behavioral symptoms that can detract from learning and undermine academic outcomes. The present study examined whether aggressive behavior and depressive and anxious symptoms mediated the association between exposure to community violence and academic functioning, and if the indirect effects of community violence on academic functioning differed for boys and girls, in a community sample of urban African American adolescents (N = 491; 46.6 % female). Structural equation modeling was used to examine the indirect effect of exposure to community violence in grade 6 on grade 8 academic functioning. Results revealed that aggression in grade 7 mediated the association between grade 6 exposure to community violence and grade 8 academic functioning. There were no indirect effects through depressive and anxious symptoms, and gender did not moderate the indirect effect. Findings highlight the importance of targeting aggressive behavior for youth exposed to community violence to not only improve their behavioral adjustment but also their academic functioning. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Here today, gone tomorrow, back again the next day: Antecedents of correctional absenteeism

Correctional agencies are labor intensive, and many of the posts in a prison cannot be vacated, often leading to mandatory overtime. Despite the high costs and inconvenience associated with absenteeism in prisons, little empirical work was conducted on the antecedents of sick leave use by correctional workers. From self-reported data of workers in federal prisons in 1994, the results of this study indicated that decisions to use sick leave were independent of the culture of the prisons, and that many of the variables found to be associated with sick leave use in other settings also applied to correctional settings. In particular, the authors found that job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job stress, and personal characteristics were associated with the use of sick leave. Surprisingly, tobacco use was not.     

The missing link between job satisfaction and correctional staff behavior: The issue of organizational commitment

Over the past twenty years, several empirical studies have examined the consequences of job satisfaction among correctional staff. When looking at worker behavior in other disciplines, though, it is commonplace to include both job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, very few studies about correctional staff behavior include both concepts. This paper discusses job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and addresses the link between these concepts as it relates to correctional staff attitudes and behaviors. Further, a discussion of measurement issues and recommendations for future research is presented. This is a revision of papers presented at the 1998 American Society of Criminology annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.     

To stay or quit: A review of the literature on correctional staff turnover

Correctional staff are the most important asset for any correctional agency. In fact, they are the heart and soul of any correctional organization. Many staff, however, voluntarily quit. The cost of this turnover is high for correctional organizations. Nonetheless, correctional staff turnover has generated only limited research. Moreover, there has been little direction in the correctional turn-over research. The different forms of turnover are discussed and the correctional staff turnover research is reviewed. A causal model for correctional staff voluntary turnover is developed and presented to guide future research. This article is a revision of a paper presented at the 1998 American Society of Criminology Annual meeting in Washington D. C. and my dissertation. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, as well as Janet Lambert, Ferris State University, for her assistance in editing and proofreading this article.     

‘The objectionable injectable’: recovering the lost history of the WLM through the Campaign Against Depo-Provera

ABSTRACT

The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) was one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century. Although the last few years have seen an increase in historical work exploring the movement, archival-based accounts of the diverse groups that comprised the WLM are few and far between. This article will uncover, and shed light on, the important work of the Campaign Against Depo-Provera. It will explore how women’s campaigns operated during this period, whilst also providing a lens for examining how women engaged with race and class. It will argue that we need to adopt a more nuanced understanding of how feminists engaged with identity, as an examination of the Campaign Against Depo-Provera questions many of the previously held orthodoxies in the literature.     

Research Note – Strain-Based Work-Family Conflict and its Relationship with Perceptions of Distributive and Procedural Justice among Correctional Staff

Fairness and justice are valued concepts throughout the entire criminal justice system, and they do not resonate any less with employees in the field of corrections. Distributive and procedural justice, two dimensions of organizational justice, were postulated to have salient outcomes for correctional staff. While a growing number of studies have examined the effects of distributive and procedural justice, their effects have not been fully explored. Strain-based work-family conflict occurs when conflict at work spills over and has a detrimental effect on home life. Hierarchical regression analysis of two different surveys of correctional staff, one at a private correctional facility for juveniles run on behalf of the state and another at an adult public state-run correctional facility, indicated that both distributive justice and procedural justice had negative relationships with strain-based work-family conflict.     

What harm,whose justice?: excavating the restorative movement

The city of Hull in the northeast of England gave itself the ambitious task of becoming the world’s first restorative city. The aim of this strategy was to create a more socially and emotionally confident youth population which in turn would encourage a more entrepreneurial and aspirational outlook across the City. Based on a two-year National Lottery-funded project exploring peoples’ experiences of restorative approaches and a Knowledge Transfer Project to help develop restorative skills, the development of restorative justice is analysed. How does a restorative classroom, workplace, or family really behave? Is there a common objective within, and across, all restorative initiatives and if so, what is it? The answer to these questions is that communication breakdown can be understood as the common harm within, and across the restorative movement. This raises some interesting questions and challenges for zemiology where both restorative justice and social harm perspectives contain quite different notions of harm suggesting that neither has yet developed a clear or solid foundation upon which to build an alternative focus to criminal harms.     

Several liability with sequential care: an experiment

European Journal of Law and Economics - By a laboratory experiment, we investigate the incentives of potential tortfeasors to make investments in order to reduce the probability of a given harm...