Cross-gender Violence Perpetration and Victimization Among Early Adolescents and Associations with Attitudes Toward Dating Conflict

This study examined gender differences in cross-gender violence perpetration and victimization (ranging from mild, e.g., push, to severe, e.g., assault with a knife or gun) and attitudes toward dating conflict, among an urban sample of 601 early adolescents (78% African-American). Comparisons across gender groups for cross-gender (e.g., female-to-male) violence perpetration and victimization indicated higher levels of perpetration for girls and higher levels of victimization for boys. Girls also reported higher levels of verbal and physical violence toward partners with regard to attitudes toward dating conflict. A path model was specified and indicated that cross-gender violence perpetration, harsh parenting, peer deviance, low family income, and neighborhood hazards accounted for significant variation in attitudes toward dating conflict. Findings were discussed regarding the need to identify developmental precursors of dating violence in early adolescence and to focus prevention efforts on components (e.g., social skills, coping strategies) necessary to prevent the onset and escalation of adolescent dating violence.

Why do South-east Asian states choose to suppress opium? A cross-case comparison

Abstract

This paper compares the reasons given by three South-east Asian states (Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) for choosing to suppress opium production. While external pressure, often from the US or United Nations (UN)/League of Nations, is the most commonly identified reason in the literature, and was experienced in each case, it was not by itself sufficient to motivate states into action. All three cases were motivated by religious or ideological opposition to drug consumption or trade, rural development, state extension and concern for increasing domestic drug consumption. Apprehension about rising drug consumption often possessed racial or chauvinistic elements. The development of export commodities, environmental protection and national security were also identified in one or two cases. The paper concludes by hypothesising that economic and/or security considerations underlie all choices to suppress illicit drug crops.     

Social Competence in Late Elementary School: Relationships to Parenting and Neighborhood Context

Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51?% girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children’s gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study’s findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.     

Temperament and social support in adolescence: Interrelations with depressive symptoms and delinquent behaviors

This study investigated the interrelations between temperament, perceived family and friend support, and depressive symptoms and delinquent activity with a sample of 975 adolescents (¯xage=15.5 years). A difficult temperament index was devised, and manifested significant associations with depressive symptoms and delinquency, as well as with low family and friend support. Moderator and mediator variable models were specified via hierarchical multiple regression equations and path analyses, respectively. There was little support for the moderator variable models; partial support was garnered for the mediational models, indicating that part of the influence of temperamental difficulty on depression and delinquency may be attributable to reduced levels of perceived family and friend support. However, temperamental difficulty also significantly predicted depression and delinquency directly, over and above its indirect influences via perceived family and friend support. The findings were similar for males and females as indicated by simultaneous group structural equation models.This research was supported by NIAAA Grant No. 07861 awarded to the authorReceived a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Major research interests involve the identification of high-risk factors for adolescent substance use and other problem behaviors.     

Tuckers firm: a case study of British organised crime

This article provides a single case study of a British organised crime network operational from the late-1980s to 1996. The network centred around three security firms which spanned the ‘spectrum of legitimacy’ by legally providing security for licensed venues, whilst taxing and protecting drug dealers, and/or selling drugs in the nightclubs they protected. All three firms employed violence to prevent the encroachment of competitors and extort licensed businesses. Debt collection services were also used as a front for extortion. Actors were individually or collaboratively engaged in: the running of brothels and extortion of sex workers, robbery of drug dealers, burglary, the importation of drugs, and unlawful influence. At least three of the activities (robber, violence and unlawful influence) served a dual purpose: (1) To achieve immediate and tangible goals, such as preventing the encroachment of competing security firms, avoiding prosecution, and material gain; (2) To achieve more distant and abstract goal of creating, maintaining or inflating violent reputations.     

Continuity of difficult temperament in adolescence: Relations with depression,life events,family support,and substance use across a one-year period

This longitudinal study examined the continuity of temperamental difficulty among a school-based sample of middle adolescents (n=975) over a one-year period. Of the participants, 25% were classified as difficult at one or both measurement occasions and over 40% were classified as temperamentally discontinuous. Repeated measures multivariate analyses of covariance analyses identified mean differences in psychosocial functioning by temperamental continuity groups and by gender. Temperamental difficulty was associated with higher levels of depression, stressful life events, use of some substances, and lower levels of perceived family support. Gender differences were indicated for family support, depression, life events, and alcohol use.This research was supported in part by NIAAA Grant No. AA07861 awarded to Michael Windle.Received Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Major research interests involve individual and family contextual influences on the etiology and development of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence.Received Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Major research interests involve the identification of high-risk factors for adolescent substance use and other problem behaviors.     

A Troika of Agitators: Three Comintern Liaison Agents in Australia, 1920–22

Peter Simonoff, Consul‐General in Australia for the Bolshevik regime from early 1918 to mid‐1921, is known to have played an active role in the founding of the Communist Party of Australia in 1920, and in promoting the “Trades Hall” faction against the ASP faction when the new party divided. Paul Freeman and Alexander Zuzenko, both deported from Australia in 1919, made return visits to Australia from Moscow in 1921 and 1922 to carry the process further. Freeman, however, backed the ASP faction, while Zuzenko lent his support to “Trades Hall”. This paper uses previously unknown reports to the Comintern's Executive Committee (ECCI) from Simonoff, Freeman and Zuzenko, as well as Australian sources, to study the relations between these men and their mutually contradictory actions.     

Parenting Predictors of Early-Adolescents’ Health Behaviors: Simultaneous Group Comparisons Across Sex and Ethnic Groups

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the invariance of predictive relations across early-adolescent sex and ethnic groups regarding parenting factors and externalizing and internalizing problems and victimization. Data (n = 598; 54% female) from a triethnic (Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and non-Hispanic black) probability sample of fifth graders collected from three sites (Birmingham, AL, Houston, TX, and Los Angeles, CA) were used in the analyses. Simultaneous group structural equation modeling supported the invariance of parenting-early adolescent outcomes across sex and ethnic groups. Parental monitoring and parental norms were relatively robust predictors of early-adolescent externalizing problems and victimization, and to a lesser extent, of internalizing problems. A maternal nurturance by parental monitoring interaction was statistically significant for all outcome behaviors, indicating that higher monitoring in conjunction with higher maternal nurturance was associated with lower levels of early-adolescent problem behaviors. The findings suggest that core parenting factors such as nurturance, monitoring, and normative expectations for early adolescent problem behaviors may serve as a foundation for parenting components of multi-component intervention studies.     

Insights for Contemporary Drug Policy: A Historical Account of Opium Control in India and Pakistan

Opium, as a tradable commodity, has a long history in the Indian sub-continent. This article offers a history of the production and distribution of both licit and illicit opium from 1773 to the present day in order to explore the lessons that the experiences of Indian and Pakistani can offer to contemporary drug policy. Four insights for contemporary drug control policy are developed from the historical analysis: (1) post-independence Pakistan and India illustrate the difficulties of controlling a regulated, licit, opium industry; (2) the relationship between Chinese and Indian opium production and exports may suggest that competition can be an effective impetus to production suppression; (3) developmental approaches to reducing production can limit the damages caused by opium suppression; (4) effective suppression requires alterations to institutional and structural conditions that facilitate production (i.e. reducing violent conflict, improving civil and criminal justice institutions efficiency or extending transport infrastructures).