Gender,Child Maltreatment,and Delinquency

Prior research and theorizing have suggested that the relationship between child maltreatment and delinquent outcomes is gendered. However, research to date that has sought to test this hypothesis has been incomplete due to issues such as inconsistency in findings, focusing on a single type of maltreatment or delinquent outcome within a given study, and an overreliance on nonprobability samples. The authors sought to expand on this literature by examining the effects of several different types of child maltreatment on six different delinquent behaviors during middle adolescence in a nationally representative probability sample of American adolescents. Results suggest that in the case of physical abuse and alcohol use, child maltreatment shapes delinquent behaviors differently for girls and boys, with several other types of delinquent behaviors being similarly shaped by child maltreatment among girls and boys. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

EU update

This is the first edition of the Bristows column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This news article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside websites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

A community response to a 9/11 hate crime: Restorative justice through dialogue

Nearly two hours after the September 11 terrorist attacks, a hate crime was committed against the Islamic Cultural Center in Eugene, Oregon. Rather than following the conventional criminal justice process, the director of the center and his wife chose to engage in a process of restorative dialogue with other community members and the offender himself. This case study of moving from hatred to healing occurred in the larger context of restorative justice, a movement that is now developing in many hundreds of communities in more than 17 countries. Social workers committed to community practice have played an active role in this reform movement, which has developed over the past two decades.     

Cities working together to improve urban services in developing areas: The Toronto-São Paulo example

This paper examines the structure and administrative impact of a cooperative urban development accord existing between the cities of Toronto, Canada and São Paulo, Brazil. Using a case study approach, the extent to which urban service delivery in São Paulo has been facilitated by this agreement—focusing on the critical area of emergency care provision—is examined. The paper suggests that as a form of development assistance, the type of international municipal cooperation demonstrated in the study may have considerable potential, insofar at least as possibilities for real improvement to established service delivery mechanisms in developing areas are evident.     

Static and Dynamic Indicators of Minority Threat in Sentencing Outcomes: A Multi-Level Analysis

Designation as a “Habitual Offender” is an enhanced form of punishment which unlike, “Three Strikes” or “10-20-Life,” is entirely discretionary. We use Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling to assess the direct effects of race and Latino ethnicity on the designation of Habitual Offenders as well as the effect of both static and dynamic indicators of racial and ethnic threat on those outcomes. Our data include 26,740 adults sentenced to prison in Florida between 2002 and 2004 who were statutorily eligible to be sentenced as Habitual. The odds of receiving this designation are significantly increased for black and Latino defendants as compared to whites, though race and ethnicity effects vary substantially by crime type, being strongest for drug offenses and negligible for violent crimes. Static measures of group level threat (% black and % Latino) have no cross-level effect on sentencing by race or Latino ethnicity. However, increasing black population over time increases the odds of being sentenced as Habitual for both black and Latino defendants. Increasing Latino population increases the odds of Habitual Offender sentencing for Latinos, but decreases it for blacks. The prospect of engaging dynamic as opposed to static measures of threat in future criminal justice and other social control research is discussed.     

Cross Pressure Scores: An Individual-Level Measure of Cumulative Partisan Pressures Arising from Social Group Memberships

Early studies of voting behavior hypothesized that the degree to which an individual was “cross-pressured” might affect how she participates in politics. However, attention to this topic waned before returning in recent years, mainly within the narrower confines of social networks analysis. In an effort to encourage broader consideration of the role of cross-pressures in political behavior, we present a new approach to estimating cross-pressures that (1) is individual-specific, (2) reflects the cumulative cross-pressures faced by an individual from her many intersecting social strata and group memberships, irrespective of the mechanism by which those pressures are experienced, and (3) can be estimated using widely-available data in party systems of any size, thus making it easier to study the effect of cross-pressures cross-nationally and over time. We demonstrate that these estimates are robust to many estimation choices, correspond well to existing measures of cross-pressures, and are correlated with patterns of political engagement and participation predicted by extant theories.