Does resting heart rate at age 18 distinguish general and violent offending up to age 50? Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Purpose

There is a sizable literature documenting the relationship between resting heart rate and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Absent from the literature is the extent to which heart rate has long-term prediction into late middle adulthood and the extent to which such effects are specific to certain crime types, such as violence, or whether heart rate effects are more general.

Methods

This study uses data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal study of 411 South London males followed through age 50 in order to examine these two research questions.

Results

Results suggest that lower heart rates are significantly associated with total conviction frequency and involvement in violence. This pattern of relationships is not altered by the inclusion of additional risk factors such as early childhood risk factors, adolescent involvement in smoking, body mass index, participation in team sports, binge drinking, or a measure of impulsivity.

Conclusions

Heart rate was found to be a significant correlate of criminal offending. Study limitations and implications are discussed.     

The relationship between schemas and offence supportive attitudes in mentally disordered sexual offenders

Abstract

The study of schemas in sexual offenders is a relatively new approach in attempts to understand the deviant beliefs and attitudes of sexual offenders. Emerging findings suggest that offence supportive attitudes may be the product of an offender's underlying schemas. This study aims to establish the relationship between offence supportive attitudes and schemas in a sample of mentally disordered sexual offenders (MDSOs). Thirty-one male sexual offenders held within low through high security forensic mental health units were assessed using the Young Schema Questionnaire - Short Version 3 and the Questionnaire on Attitudes Consistent with Sex Offending. Correlational analyses suggested a pattern of relationships in which Insufficient Self-control, Entitlement and Enmeshment arose as the schemas associated with most offence supportive attitudes. This supports a relationship between schemas and offence supportive attitudes in MDSOs and is consistent with the literature to date. Implications for further research and treatment are considered.     

Housing Affordability and Health: Evidence From New York City

It is generally understood that households make tradeoffs between housing costs and other living expenses. In this article, we examine the relationship between health-related outcomes and housing-induced financial burdens for renters in one of the most expensive cities in the world, New York, New York. Drawing from the Housing Vacancy Survey for 2011, a representative survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau of more than 16,000 households in New York City, we estimate the effect of housing cost burden on the overall health of renters and the extent to which they have postponed various types of medical services for financial reasons. Results show that higher out-of-pocket rent burdens are associated with worse self-reported health conditions and a higher likelihood to postpone medical services for financial reasons. This relationship is particularly strong for those households with severe rent burdens. In addition, housing cost burden is equally or more important than other physical housing characteristics in explaining the variation in self-reported general health status and health care postponement. These findings are robust across specifications with different degrees of household, unit/building, and neighborhood controls, and among longstanding and newer renters. Our findings point to the importance of considering health-related outcomes when designing housing policies, and that housing subsidies should target both renters' out-of-pocket costs and place-based repair and maintenance.     

Promoting Postsecondary Education in Low-Income Youth: The Moderating Role of Socio-Behavioral and Academic Skills in the Context of a Major Educational Reform

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Governments around the world are pressed to invest in postsecondary education. However, little research exists to document whether large-scale educational reforms...     

The Self as a Dynamic Constant. Rāmakaṇṭha’s Middle Ground Between a Naiyāyika Eternal Self-Substance and a Buddhist Stream of Consciousness-Moments

The paper gives an account of Rāmaka??ha’s (950–1000) contribution to the Buddhist–Brāhma?ical debate about the existence or non-existence of a self, by demonstrating how he carves out middle ground between the two protagonists in that debate. First three points of divergence between the Brāhma?ical (specifically Naiyāyika) and the Buddhist conceptions of subjectivity are identified. These take the form of Buddhist denials of, or re-explanations of (1) the self as the unitary essence of the individual, (2) the self as the substance to which mental properties belong, (3) the self as the agent of both physical actions and cognitions. The difference of Rāmaka??ha’s position from both Nyāya and Buddhism is then elaborated. He posits a self, but not one that is an eternally unchanging substance, nor one that is anything other than consciousness. Hence his difference from Nyāya. He falls with Buddhism in holding that consciousness does not require anything other than itself to inhere in, but departs from Buddhism in holding that consciousness is not momentary but enduring. The guiding metaphor here is light, but light considered as a dynamic, qualitatively unchanging repetition of the action of illumination.     

Is Violence Bad for Your Health? An Assessment of Chronic Disease Outcomes in a Nationally Representative Sample

Longitudinal offending research has grown substantially in the last two decades. Despite this increased scholarly attention, longitudinal investigations of the effects of offending on physical health have not kept pace. Acknowledging the intersections of criminology, criminal justice, and public health, this study examines the relationship between violent offending and chronic diseases among a nationally representative longitudinal sample of young adults. Results suggest that variation across offender typologies (i.e. adolescence-limited, adult-onset, and consistent violence during youth and young adulthood) significantly predicts experiencing chronic disease in early adulthood, with the risk being the most pronounced among those individuals, who demonstrate violence continuity. Study limitations and policy implications are discussed.     

Regions with regionalism? The rescaling of interest groups in six European states

In many European countries a regional or meso level of government has emerged, with significant policy responsibilities. It has been suggested that the representation of social and economic interests has not followed, so that policy communities remain state‐wide, giving ‘regions without regionalism’. This study of interest groups in six European states examines their adaptation to devolution, focusing on organisation, cognitive change and relationships. It finds there has been a regionalisation of interest representation, but it is uneven, depending on the strength of regional government, territorial identities and the interests of social actors. Business, trades unions, farmer organisations and environmental groups are all cross‐pressured on the regional question. The region is emerging in some cases as a site of interest intermediation. Territorial policy communities are emerging in some regions, but in most cases these supplement, rather than replace, state‐wide policy communities.     

Political rights,republican freedom,and temporary workers

I defend a neo-republican account of the right to have political rights. Neo-republican freedom from domination is a sufficient condition for the extension of political rights not only for permanent residents, but also for temporary residents, unauthorized migrants, and some expatriates. I argue for the advantages of the neo-republican account over the social membership account, the affected-interest account, the stakeholder account, and accounts based on the justification of state coercion.     

Testing Social Support Theory: A Multilevel Analysis of Recidivism

Purpose

Tests of social support theory have relied on aggregate crime rates as the outcome of interest, but such a focus ignores the potentially important macro-level processes and effects on individual-level behavior We thus perform the first multi-level investigation of social support theory.

Methods

Multilevel modeling is used to explore whether the two varieties of county-level social support - the presence of charitable organizations and AFDC expenditures - are associated with recidivism in a sample of Florida prison releasees.

Results

Results show that while social support explains little variation in individual-level recidivism, a combination of private and public social support may reduce the likelihood of reconviction for drug offenses.

Conclusion

Findings provide mixed evidence for the prospect that social support—whether governmental or nongovernmental—is associated with recidivism among recently-released inmates.