Transportation Among Returning Citizens: "You Just Want to Stay Down and Get High".

The United States is releasing more individuals from prisons than ever before. However, returning citizens face numerous challenges transitioning back into community life and many communities remain ill-equipped in successfully supporting them. This study focuses on transportation as in integral component to the success of returning citizens. Rapid and rigorous qualitative data analysis (RADaR technique) is applied to interviews (n = 15) with individuals having returned to their community about the impact of transportation on their reentry. Analysis resulted in three primary themes; interviewees reinforced existing knowledge of the issues with transportation disadvantage, transportation is an extension of freedom, and transportation is directly connected to reentry success. These findings suggest a tiered structure of transportation freedom for returning citizens. This model of transportation will aid future researchers and policymakers in considering how to better resource returning citizens to maximize their success.

A Blue Step Forward: An Exploratory Study of Law Enforcement Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence in the Southern United States.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive issue that is underreported to law enforcement. One reason why individuals do not report their victimization stems from a perceived lack of support from law enforcement officials. However, law enforcement perceptions of IPV are largely unknown as the empirical literature on this topic is both limited and dated. To fill this gap in the literature, we conduct an exploratory analysis of how officers perceive IPV events. Utilizing original survey data from 498 law enforcement officers in a Southern state, officer perceptions of offenders, victims, and the credibility of IPV calls are explored. We also evaluate whether those perceptions vary by personal characteristics of officers by utilizing t-tests and correlations. Findings indicate that, overall, officer perceptions have evolved from the historical viewpoint that IPV events were a private family matter to contemporary perceptions that IPV is a serious crime that requires attention from law enforcement. Furthermore, results suggest differences in perceptions by officers' personal characteristics (i.e., gender, rank, age, and years of law enforcement experience). With increasing age and years of law enforcement experience, victim-related factors are less salient in police perceptions of IPV calls. Regarding gender, female officers are less likely than male officers to believe victims may easily leave an abusive relationship and less likely to consider physical evidence of trauma to be very important in determining the credibility of an IPV call-suggesting that female officers are more in tune with the complexity of IPV cases. While officers appear to have a strong understanding of the contours of IPV incidents, overall, clear differences by personal characteristics were evident.

Childhood Maltreatment and Child Protective Services Involvement Among the Commercially Sexually Exploited: A Comparison of Women Who Enter as Juveniles or as Adults.

A risk for commercial sexual exploitation is childhood maltreatment. It's unknown whether juveniles in commercial sexual exploitation experience more childhood maltreatment than adults or how involved child protective services is in investigating maltreatment, a focus of this study. Women (N = 96) who sold sex commercially completed a cross-sectional questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, t tests, chi-squares, and odds ratios were used to examine differences in background, childhood maltreatment, and child protective services involvement by juvenile or adult entry. Although 93% of participants experienced child maltreatment, juveniles had increased odds of parent/caregiver sexual abuse, being left alone, being kicked out, and running away from a parent/caregiver. There were no differences in cumulative childhood maltreatment resulting in an investigation or removal, indicating that juveniles not investigated or removed by child protective services had as much childhood maltreatment as juveniles who were investigated or removed by child protective services. Results highlight the need for child welfare staff to recognize childhood maltreatment as risks for commercial sexual exploitation.

What Makes Them More Vulnerable Than Others? Obesity, Negative Emotions, and Peer Bullying Victimization.

Negative impacts resulting from peer bullying victimization include psychological stress, emotional and academic maladjustment, decreased self-esteem, relational problems with peers, and may also lead to suicidal ideation and behavior. Therefore, efforts have been concentrated toward identifying characteristics of victims and perpetrators of bullying to allocate resources for preventive strategies. The current study adds to this ongoing research by using a nationally representative sample of adolescents to identify health-related correlates (obesity and negative emotions) of students vulnerable to peer bullying victimization, as well as exploring individual and school-related characteristics. Findings suggest that negative emotions are related to peer bully victimization, but a relationship between obesity and victimization is not clear. In addition, students attending schools with bullying prevention programs were more likely to report physical victimization. Discussion is offered regarding these findings and suggestions for future research in this area.

Who becomes more violent among Korean adolescents? Consequences of victimisation in school.

BACKGROUND: Mainly Western studies suggest that bullying increases risk of subsequent offending. Less is known about risk of violence specifically. Very little such research is from Asia - none from Korea. AIM: This study aimed to answer three research questions: Is being a victim of bullying in Korean schools associated with later perpetration of violent behaviour? Does type of bullying influence type of offending? Does school climate or parental control mediate this relationship? METHOD: Juvenile justice intake officers identified 606 young offenders who were asked to complete questionnaires about their school experience, school climate and parental supervision. We used multinomial logit model with maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate relationships between the variables of interest. RESULTS: Over half (310) of these young people had committed at least one violent offence. Seventy-six (13%) reported having experienced emotional bullying at school and 31 (5%) physical bullying. Violent offending was over twice as likely as property offending to be associated with emotional bullying history (OR 2.38, CI 1.13-5.01), but three times less likely with physical bullying (OR 0.31, CI 0.11-0.87). In addition, parental control (but not school climate) increased the likelihood of violent offending or other delinquency by 15% (OR 1.14, CI 1.02-1.26; OR 1.16, CI 1.01-1.32, respectively). CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Our overarching finding of a relationship between childhood experience of bullying and later delinquency is in line with Western findings. Where, however, the latter are equivocal on risk of later violence perpetration, we found that being emotionally bullied raises the risk of becoming violent. Our findings also underscore the importance of having studies from a range of cultures. Predictions from Western studies would be that parental control would be protective and school climate a potential risk factor for later violence, but, in Korea, where parenting styles tend to be highly authoritarian, we found differently.

Using base rates and correlational data to supplement clinical risk assessments.

The current study is a partial replication of previous studies designed to estimate the level of risk posed by capital murder defendants. The study draws on data describing the behavior of nearly 2,000 incarcerated capital murderers to forecast violence propensity among defendants sentenced to life imprisonment. Logistic regression is used to model various violence outcomes, relying on the following predictors: age, educational attainment, prior imprisonment, and gang affiliation. This exercise is designed to illustrate how actuarial data may be used to anchor individualized clinical assessments of risk in capital murder trials.