Guardians at the Gate: The Backgrounds, Career Paths, and Professional Development of Private US Immigration Lawyers

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of seventy-one New York immigration lawyers who are engaged in private practice. It focuses on the lawyers' backgrounds, career paths, and early professional training and describes, inter alia, the unusual diversity of this bar, the lawyers' reasons for practicing immigration law, the ways in which they learn to practice law, and the strong sense of community within the private immigration bar. It uses the idea of communities of practice to help understand how lawyers learn from their colleagues and are influenced by them. The article identifies several factors that may contribute to the supportiveness of the bar and the strong sense of community within that practice specialty, notwithstanding its great diversity. It concludes by making some preliminary comparisons between immigration lawyers and lawyers in other practice specialties and by identifying some questions for future study.     

Maybe He's Depressed: Mental Illness as a Mitigating Factor for Drug Offender Accountability

Given the often perplexing relationship between mental illness and substance abuse among offenders, this article looks at how a juvenile drug court staff's presumptions of a youth's mental illness affect its decision-making process. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork at a Southern California juvenile drug court, this article uses Manzo and Travers's "law in action" approach to analyze how the staff readjusts its application of normal remedies (a concept developed by Robert Emerson) designed to respond to a youth's noncompliance when it suspects mental illness may be influencing the youth's actions. In doing so, it highlights how court staff's considerations of youth mental disorders arise out of its everyday work practices. Furthermore, the article discusses how staff negotiations around a youth's mental illness create tensions for the juvenile drug court's accountability-based model of therapeutic jurisprudence, because assessments of mental illness tend to mitigate responsibility for a youth's behavior.     

English- and Spanish-speaking women's use of violence

This study analyzes variables related to the context and consequences of women's use of violence as well as a wide range of violent behaviors used and experienced by court-ordered English- and Spanish-speaking women. Data were derived from intake assessments of 125 court-ordered women over 24 months. Almost all of the women reported a history of abuse perpetrated by their partners. Women committed significantly fewer violent acts against their partners than their partners committed against them. Differences between English- and Spanish-speaking women's victimization, use of violence, and help seeking were largely similar, however, important differences emerged.     

The psychological effects of solitary confinement on prisoners in supermax units: reviewing what we know and recommending what should change

This article examines the psychological consequences of short- and long-term solitary confinement for prisoners in the United States subjected to administrative or disciplinary segregation. Particular attention is paid to the use of secure housing units, alternatively known as control units or supermax units. These correctional entities allow for the isolation of convicts under conditions that offer little sensory stimulation and minimal opportunities for interaction with other people. The circumstances typically found in these units and the heightened potential for the abuse of prisoners are described. The connections between internment and mental illness-as well as isolation and race, gender, and class-are explored. A set of recommendations for the reform of secure housing is presented.     

Leaving Home, Attending College, Partnership and Parenthood: The Role of Life Transition Events in Leisure Pattern Stability From Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Few researchers have examined the role that life transition events play in the maintenance of or change in leisure behaviors across the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. This study examines the role that leaving home, going to college, having a committed partner, and becoming a parent played in intraindividual change and stability in leisure patterns. The data were from the Michigan Study of Adolescent Life Transitions (MSALT), and were collected during the final year of high school and 3 years following high school. Results suggest that transition events are particularly useful in predicting female leisure pattern stability or change; going to college and leaving home were generally predictive of the maintenance of a stable leisure pattern, while becoming a partner and becoming a parent were predictive of change. For males, the most useful predictor of stability or change was leaving home. However, the nature of the relation of the transition events to pattern stability or change depended on the type of initial leisure pattern.     

Developmental Pathways from Genetic,Prenatal, Parenting and Emotional/Behavioral Risk to Cortisol Reactivity and Adolescent Substance Use: A TRAILS Study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Cortisol reactivity is a frequently studied biomarker of substance use, though infrequently examined in adolescence. However, past research provides evidence that...     

The Authoritarian Executive? Horizontal and Vertical Accountability in Nicaragua

This article uses empirical evidence from Nicaragua to examine Guillermo O'Donnell's argument that new democracies often become undemocratic delegative democracies and that vertical accountability is not enough to stop such encroaching authoritarianism. While events in the last five years have focused attention on illegal executive behavior by former president Alemán, Nicaragua's democracy actually has experienced authoritarian presidencies under all the major parties. Elections and popular mobilization have strengthened the independence of the legislature, however. Mechanisms of vertical accountability thereby have proven more effective than expected in restraining executive authoritarianism and fostering institutions of horizontal accountability. The case of Nicaragua shows that citizens can use the power balance and separate institutional mandate of presidential democracy to limit authoritarianism.     

Support groups for battered women: Research on their efficacy

An evaluation of 12 support groups for women victims of domestic assault revealed substantial benefits associated with group participation. A total of 76 women responded to an assessment package before, immediately after, and six months following the group. Significant improvements were found in self-esteem, belonging support, locus of control, less traditional attitudes towards marriage and the family, perceived stress, and marital functioning. Unexpectedly, clients currently living with their spouses also reported significant decreases in both physical and nonphysical abuse.