Influences and Mediators of the Effect of Poverty on Young Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

Data from a sample of young adolescents between the ages of 10 and 12 years (N = 898) from the mother–child data set of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were analyzed in a study of influences that explain the relation between poverty and depressive symptoms measured 2 years later. Other variables that predicted youth depressive symptoms were also identified. Results indicated that neighborhood problems, nonparticipation in outside school and neighborhood activities, residing with mothers who exhibited depressive symptoms, and mother's use of physical punishment were partial mediators of the effect of poverty on depressive symptoms 2 years later. Youth health status, lower levels of school satisfaction, marital-partner conflict, and father's emotional support also predicted depressive symptoms. The findings indicate that youth depressive symptoms are multiply determined and that poverty can adversely affect young adolescents in many ways.     

Family Representative Payeeship and Violence Risk in Severe Mental Illness

Although representative payeeship is prevalent among people with mental illness and shows promise to positively influence clinically relevant outcomes, research also suggests this legal mechanism could be implemented in ways that are problematic. The current study examined whether family representative payeeship was associated with elevated risk of family violence perpetrated by persons with severe mental illness (SMI). Data were collected every 4 months for 1 year in structured interviews with N = 245 persons with SMI who received disability benefits. Multivariate analyses showed that substance abuse, history of violence, frequency of family contact, and family representative payeeship were associated with elevated odds of family violence. Analyses also showed family contact and family representative payeeship had a cumulative effect on increasing the predicted probability of family violence (controlling for covariates such as violence history and substance abuse). The data shed light on the potential for family representative payeeship to be associated with increased risk of interpersonal conflict and violence in SMI.     

对“治安承包“的思考

"治安承包"作为一种"本土化"的预防犯罪模式,其产生是世界警务形势与我国社会治安现状相结合的产物,它其实属于社区警务改革的诸多法门之一。建立在社区警务基础之上的"治安承包"是有相应的理论和现实基础的,但也有令人思考的余地。     

When Public Protection Becomes Punishment? The UK Use of Civil Measures to Contain the Sex Offender

In keeping with many countries the UK has moved the problem of sexual offending up the political agenda. On the criminal justice side sentences have been increased and supervision periods extended. On the civil side a raft of new measures have been put in place to regulate the behaviour of sex offenders in the interest of community safety and child protection; this paper examines these measures and, in particular takes the sex offender ‘register’ as a case study to show how political imperatives have been brought to bear with little reference to the research or professional views of practitioners in this area. It is contended that under these political pressures, what starts life as a preventive, regulatory measure can easily become a more punitive measure in its own right; as such it may be liable to challenge by those subject to it for failing to fulfil its primary purpose and for straying across a line between the civil and criminal aspects of intervention.     

Distributive Justice and Crime

The heavy concentration of crime on a few areas, and the concentration on the chronically victimised within those areas, together illustrate the gross inequality of the risk of crime victimisation. This inequality also characterises other hazards of life. Criminology has too often reduced the problem of crime to the problem of the offender. Recognising crime hazard as an issue of distributive justice requires a different mind set. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 recognises the drivers of crime as lying outside criminal justice, but does not put in place a panhazard analysis of the kind required, community safety being presented as a type of crime prevention. Movement towards panhazard thinking may well be somewhat facilitated by the workingthrough of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, actions flowing from section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act, and a reconsideration of how emergency services might work.     

Questioning Appeals to Community within Crime Prevention and Control

This article casts a critical eye over some of the (often ignored) assumptions which underlie recent appeals to community in crime prevention and control. The article considers the philosophical origins, ambiguities and tensions within such appeals. In so doing, it draws explicitly upon the growth of community safety and to a lesser extent restorative justice in Britain and considers some of the implications to which this shift may give rise. In particular, it focuses upon the manner in which appeals to community converge and collide with changing social relations which may undermine their progressive potential. Specific attention is given to the implications of: increasing social and spatial dislocation; the commodification of security; and policy debates about a growing underclass. It is argued that there is much confusion as to how, and to what extent, communities can contribute to the construction of social order. Within the dynamics of community safety and crime control practices there are dangers that security differentials may become increasingly significant characteristics of wealth and status with implications for social exclusion. This questions the extent to which crime is an appropriate vehicle around which to (re)construct open and tolerant communities.     

Community Penalties in the United States

The author discusses some background matters concerning the US criminal justice systems that may provide useful context for non-US readers, and summarises the main general conclusions about the operation of community penalties from two decades' research. He also briefly summarises research concerning each of the major penalties that have been attempted. Why American jurisdictions have been comparatively unsuccessful at use of community penalties as alternatives to incarceration and whether that lack of receptivity can be changed is discussed in the conclusion.     

农村公共产品供给失衡困境及路径探析——基于公共选择理论的视角

公共选择理论作为一种分析工具可以对政治主体的理性行为作出很好的诠释,进而有力解析了我国农村公共产品供给所面临的失衡困境。     

城市社区文化建设的几点思考

本文在剖析城市社区文化建设存在问题的基础上,从完善城市社区文化管理机制,建立文化资源共享、共建机制,加强社区文化工作者队伍建设,健全社区文化管理政策法规等方面提出了对策措施。     

对贵阳市廉租房社区建设的思考

贵阳市“住有所居”行动计划实施三年来，廉租房建设力度不断加大，在此同时，带来的问题也日益凸显。一方面是廉租房建设制度的完善，如房源、融资渠道、退出机制、补贴形式、建设规模、租赁资格、租金标准等方面的问题；另一方面是廉租房社区的建设问题。目前，政府的关注多放在前者上。通过具体调查，文章提出了贵阳市廉租房社区建设的对策。