Perceived Social Support among Bullies,Victims, and Bully-Victims

Research indicates that social support plays a protective role among adolescents, but little research has explicitly evaluated its function among youth involved in bullying. Accordingly, this study examined relations among social support, bully/victim status, and psychological distress in a sample of 784 ethnically diverse youth. We assessed differences in perceived social support across bully/victim subtypes, and evaluated peer and maternal social support as protective factors among victims, bullies, and bully-victims. Youth were classified as uninvolved (61.6%), as bullies (14.3%), as victims (12.5%), and as bully-victims (11.6%). Uninvolved youth reported the most peer and maternal social support and the least anxiety/depression. Multivariate analyses revealed that there was a significant interaction between bully/victim groups and peer social support. Specifically, bullies, victims, and bully-victims who reported moderate peer social support also indicated the least anxiety/depression. Results highlight the importance of encouraging youth to develop and effectively use peer support networks as part of bullying intervention programs.

A Comparison of Thresholding Methods for Forensic Reconstruction Studies Using Fluorescent Powder Proxies for Trace Materials

Image segmentation is a fundamental precursor to quantitative image analysis. At present, no standardised methodology exists for segmenting images of fluorescent proxies for trace evidence. Experiments evaluated (i) whether manual segmentation is reproducible within and between examiners (with three participants repeatedly tracing three images) (ii) whether manually defining a threshold level offers accurate and reproducible results (with 20 examiners segmenting 10 images), and (iii) whether a global thresholding algorithm might perform with similar accuracy, while offering improved reproducibility and efficiency (16 algorithms tested). Statistically significant differences were seen between examiners’ traced outputs. Manually thresholding produced good accuracy on average (within ±1% of the expected values), but poor reproducibility (with multiple outliers). Three algorithms (Yen, MaxEntropy, and RenyiEntropy) offered similar accuracy, with improved reproducibility and efficiency. Together, these findings suggest that appropriate algorithms could perform thresholding tasks as part of a robust workflow for reconstruction studies employing fluorescent proxies for trace evidence.     

Disproportionate minority contact in the Dutch juvenile justice system

To examine whether disproportionate minority contact (DMC) exists in the Netherlands, the representation of minority youth was determined for all stages of the juvenile justice system. Using native Dutch youth as a reference group, the odds ratios (OR) to be registered and arrested as suspect, for alternative punishment and for incarceration, were calculated for the minority youth. In all stages of the juvenile justice system, the ORs for minority youths were considerably higher, except for alternative punishment, having lower ORs. This indicates that DMC exists in the Netherlands. DMC should be politicized and programs should be developed to eliminate this inequality.     

A Multi-Level Conceptual Model to Examine Child Welfare Worker Turnover and Retention Decisions

There is little disagreement about the importance of a healthy stable workforce in promoting effective provision of child welfare services. This review proposes a multi-level conceptual model of child welfare workforce turnover combining traditional individual and organizational impacts with factors associated with community context. Identified gaps in the literature along with a related research agenda are reviewed. Also presented is an overview of the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families, a longitudinal study of new hires into the child welfare workforce across Florida, providing opportunities to address gaps and test model characteristics regarding turnover decisions and related outcomes.     

Policy on innovation in Australia: Divergence in definitions,problems, and solutions

Innovation has joined the mainstream in many nations as governments search for new ways to tackle challenging societal and economic problems. But Australia is seen to be lagging on innovation policy. Is this related to how governments define innovation? What do they regard as the problem they are addressing? What proposed solutions follow from this? This paper examines how Australian governments have defined innovation over four decades, signalling their policy intentions about how to make the nation more innovative. Definitions of innovation are analysed using 79 Australian (national level) policy documents published from 1976 to 2019. Close reading of these documents suggests two main definitions: innovation as technology, and innovation as culture. Topic modelling uncovers more differentiated themes, shows how definitions change over time, and demonstrates an association between definitions and political parties in government. The divergent approaches suggest a lack of coherence and continuity to policy on innovation in Australia.

Points for practitioners

• Innovation has expanded and broadened in its definition and governments and policymakers have paid increasing attention to it.
• In Australia, there are two main definitions of innovation used in policy—one related to technology and one related to culture.
• The technology view of innovation can be further divided into a focus on businesses or a focus on research and development (R&D).
• Different innovation definitions, problems, and solutions dominate at different times, with Coalition governments tending to favour business and technology over culture, and Labor governments doing the opposite.
• There are divergent approaches to policy on innovation in Australia which suggest a lack of coherence and consistency in policy over the long term.