Risk and Protective Factors for Peer Victimization in Adolescents with ADHD

ABSTRACT

Youth with ADHD are more at-risk for peer victimization than their typically developing peers, and may not be benefiting from current interventions. Thus, we sought to examine risk (i.e., anxiety, depression, and forms of aggression) and protective (i.e., social skills and social acceptance) factors for peer victimization in this group. Participants were 123 young adolescents diagnosed with ADHD, who were attending grades six through eight. We found that relational aggression (i.e., excluding others from activities) and anxiety symptoms were among the strongest risk factors for victimization. Anxiety symptoms were associated with victimization over and above depressive symptoms. Social acceptance buffered risk conferred by the risk factors. Future work is needed to investigate the degree to which the relations among internalizing symptoms and victimization differ in youth with ADHD relative to typically developing youth, and assess causality of the relations.     

Al Qaeda's Operational Intelligence—A Key Prerequisite to Action

For Al Qaeda, intelligence is a critical operational resource. Its vigorous collection, scrutiny, and dissemination within the organization have proven fundamental to its capacity to engage in carefully crafted acts of terrorism. In addition to its operational utility, intelligence fulfills a range of other functions, including an ability to contribute to Al Qaeda's symbolic goals and elevate the confidence of operatives and leadership alike. Ultimately, however, Al Qaeda's collection and use of detailed intelligence reveals a capacity to calculate the consequences of alternative courses of action, thereby helping to dispel notions of an irrationality or fanaticism in which decision making is somehow removed from reality.     

Referrers' views of structured professional judgement risk assessment of sexual offenders: A qualitative study

Abstract

The Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol is a structured professional judgement (SPJ) tool that aids risk assessment of sexual violence. It is widely used internationally. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical practice of SPJ risk assessment and risk management through qualitative analysis of the accounts of users of these assessments. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 31 criminal justice professionals in southeast Scotland. The participants' accounts were explored using the framework method. Five themes emerged from this analysis: informing risk management; confirming what was known and giving weight; understanding personality; treatment; and the usefulness and limitations of risk assessment. The participants reported that the assessments were influential with respect to risk management. The study revealed some important implications for service development. The authors suggest possible future use of the framework method in research investigating the risk assessment of sexual violence.     

Citizens’ knowledge and perceptions of legislatures in Canada,Britain and the United States

This study has two major parts. The first uses survey data to reveal what citizens in Britain, Canada and the United States know about their national legislatures and what factors ‐ including cognitive ability, opportunity, motivation and media exposure ‐ affect that knowledge. We find that US citizens are the least knowledgeable. The second part of the study looks at whether the level of knowledge in each country has any importance for understanding levels of public support for the national legislature. In the United States, the more knowledgeable citizens are less likely to support Congress, in sharp contrast to the tendency of knowledgeable Canadian citizens to be more supportive of their parliament. Knowledge is not a significant predictor of support in the British model. Some implications of the findings are discussed.     

Shaping Citizen Perceptions of Police Legitimacy: A Randomized Field Trial of Procedural Justice

Exploring the relationship between procedural justice and citizen perceptions of police is a well‐trodden pathway. Studies show that when citizens perceive the police acting in a procedurally just manner—by treating people with dignity and respect, and by being fair and neutral in their actions—they view the police as legitimate and are more likely to comply with directives and cooperate with police. Our article examines both the direct and the indirect outcomes of procedural justice policing, tested under randomized field trial conditions. We assess whether police can enhance perceptions of legitimacy during a short, police‐initiated and procedurally just traffic encounter and how this single encounter shapes general views of police. Our results show significant differences between the control and experimental conditions: Procedurally just traffic encounters with police (experimental condition) shape citizen views about the actual encounter directly and general orientations toward the police relative to business‐as‐usual traffic stops in the control group. The theorized model is supported by our research, demonstrating that the police have much to gain from acting fairly during even short encounters with citizens.     

The Effect of Police Personnel Levels on Crime Clearance Rates: A Cross-National Analysis

A recent upsurge in governmental concern about police efficiency has produced a plethora of evaluative studies. Most of these studies have assumed a relationship between police activity and crime that has been, during the past eight years, seriously questioned. The present study investigates this relationship by employing a cross-national sample to resolve past methodological problems. Based on previous literature, the social conflict, economic, and political factors that confound the relationship between police personnel levels and crime clearance effects are identified and then controlled through regression analysis.

The findings indicate that the number of police has a negative effect on clearance rates. However, its effect is minimal. In addition, the social structural characteristics of nations explain more variance in clearance rates than do the levels of police, as well as attenuate the observed relationship between the police personnel and crimes cleared by arrest. Of special interest is the finding that increased system openness as well as concern for political and civil rights positively affects clearance rates, a finding which runs counter to current justice thinking.