Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Alcohol,Cigarette, and Marijuana Use During Adolescence

The purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge base of adolescent substance use by examining the influences of risk and protective factors for specific substance use, namely alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. Participants included 271 adolescents and their primary caregivers referred for mental health services across North Carolina. A series of hierarchical multiple regressions showed that the relative influences of risk and protective factors differed depending on the target substance in some cases. History of parental felony predicted use of all 3 substances, although the direction of association was substance specific. Parental behavioral control (how families express and maintain standards of behavior) was predictive only of cigarette and marijuana use, not alcohol use. The different links among risk factors, protective factors, and specific substance use are discussed, and recommendations for both mental health and substance use professionals are offered.She received her M.A. in Psychology from Wake Forest University and is currently a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her major research interests include developmental pathways to aggressive behavior among females.An evaluator for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, her major research interests include system of care intervention programming.She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Purdue University. Her major research interests include developmental psychopathology and early intervention.His research interests focus on youth violence and youth involved with the juvenile justice system.She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research interests focus on early intervention with young children.     

Assessing callous–unemotional traits in adolescent offenders: Validation of the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits

The presence of callous–unemotional (CU) traits designates an important subgroup of antisocial youth. To improve upon existing measures, the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits (ICU) was developed to provide an efficient, reliable, and valid assessment of CU traits in samples of youth. The current study tests the factor structure and correlates of the ICU scale in a sample (n = 248) of juvenile offenders (188 boys, 60 girls) between the ages of 12 and 20 (M = 15.47, SD = 1.37). Confirmatory factor analyses are consistent with the presence of three independent factors (i.e., Uncaring, Callousness, and Unemotional) that relate to a higher-order callous–unemotional dimension. Also, CU traits overall showed associations with aggression, delinquency, and both psychophysiological and self-report indices of emotional reactivity. There were some important differences across the three facets of the ICU in their associations with these key external criteria.     

Does government funding alter nonprofit governance? Evidence from New York City nonprofit contractors

Government contracting has raised a collection of issues with respect to adequate oversight and accountability. This paper explores one avenue through which contracting agencies may achieve these tasks: through the governance practices of the contractor's board. Oversight and monitoring are a board's key responsibilities, and influencing a board's practices is one way a governmental agency can help to insure quality performance. Agencies could thus use both their selection process and their post‐contracting power to influence board practice. Using a new, rich data set on the nonprofit contractors of New York City, a series of hypotheses were tested on the relationship between government funding and board practices. Significant differences were found to exist in board practices as a function of government funding levels, differences that mark a shift of energy away from some activities (i.e., traditional board functions, such as fund‐raising) towards others (financial monitoring and advocacy). This suggests that government agencies may indeed use their contracting choices with an eye to particular governance practices. This increased emphasis on such activities appears to crowd out other activities, and is not unambiguously to the benefit of nonprofit board governance. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Relationship Between Two Types of Help Seeking Behavior in Domestic Violence Victims

A coordinated community response system to the help-seeking behaviors of domestic violence victims is critical to minimize the impact of violent events and to educate the public, so that safe and effective conflict management skills may replace violent responses. The focus for the present study is to identify and analyze victims’ choices of law enforcement assistance in stopping the violence and/or aid through the services of the regional family violence center. Some victims select legal channels of support; others rely exclusively on social service support, and others seek assistance from both sources. Characteristics of victims whose cases followed two types of help-seeking behavior patterns—legal support or social support–were determined through archived data from both the records of a regional family violence center (FVC) (n=258) and domestic violence incident reports of a police department serving a city of approximately 200,000 citizens (n=127). Findings indicate that African American victims more frequently sought protection through law enforcement sources than they did through family violence center services, and the reverse was true for Euro-Americans.     

Theorising noncitizenship: concepts,debates and challenges

Abstract

Existing political theory, particularly which deals with justice and/or rights, has long assumed citizenship as a core concept. Noncitizenship, if it is considered at all, is generally defined merely as the negation or deprivation of citizenship. As such, it is difficult to examine successfully the status of noncitizens, obligations towards them, and the nature of their role in political systems. This article addresses this critical gap by defining the theoretical problem that noncitizenship presents and demonstrating why it is an urgent concern. It surveys the contributions to the special issue for which the article is an introduction, drawing on cross-cutting themes and debates to highlight the importance of theorising noncitizenship due to both the problematic gap that exists in the theoretical literature, and the real world problems created as a result of noncitizenship which are not currently successfully addressed. Finally, the article discusses key future directions for the theorisation of noncitizenship.     

Public health and collaborative governance

Abstract: The nature of governance in Canada, both horizontally (between federal departments) and vertically (between federal and provincial governments) is changing. Or is it? Two distinct trends seem to have emerged over the past decade: one towards horizontal coordination and one towards vertical collaboration. These trends are perhaps best exemplified by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which depends very emphatically on integrated relationships both with other federal departments and with provincial and territorial governments. Yet in the past year, severe criticisms have emerged regarding the agency's ability to meet its objectives. To what extent are these problems due to the failure of collaborative governance? On a wider level, have decision-makers been too insouciant about making importunate public policy decisions on an assumption of the viability of collaborative governance? This article argues that problems in vertical collaboration in public health have occurred largely due to failures in horizontal coordination within the national government.     

Youth and the forbidden fruit: Experiences with changes in legal drinking age in North America

The effects of changes in the minimum drinking ages in various North American jurisdictions are reviewed. The research suggests that although most teenagers have experimented with alcohol, the rates of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related traffic collisions can be increased and decreased with the drinking age control legislation.     

Forensic analysis of bicomponent fibers using infrared chemical imaging

The application of infrared chemical imaging to the analysis of bicomponent fibers was evaluated. Eleven nominally bicomponent fibers were examined either side-on or in cross-section. In six of the 11 samples, infrared chemical imaging was able to spatially resolve two spectroscopically distinct regions when the fibers were examined side-on. As well as yielding characteristic infrared spectra of each component, the technique also provided images that clearly illustrated the side-by-side configuration of these components in the fiber. In one case it was possible to prepare and image a cross-section of the fiber, but in general the preparation of fiber cross-sections proved very difficult. In five of the 11 samples, the infrared spectra could be used to identify the overall chemical composition of the fibers, according to a published classification scheme, but the fiber components could not be spatially resolved. Difficulties that are inherent to conventional "single-point" infrared spectroscopy, such as interference fringing and sloping baselines, particularly when analyzing acrylic type fibers, were also encountered in the infrared chemical image analysis of bicomponent fibers. A number of infrared sampling techniques were investigated to overcome these problems, and recommendations for the best sampling technique are given. Chemical imaging results were compared with those obtained using conventional fiber microscopy techniques.