Does the State Impact Hope? The Impact of Direct and Vicarious Police Contact on the Optimism of Youth in Large Cities.

A growing body of research has begun to examine the implications of police contact for youth. Largely emphasizing serious police contact (arrest, court involvement, and incarceration), this scholarship has generally found that police contact is associated with negative health and educational outcomes. In this study, we build on this work by examining the implications of direct and vicarious police contact for youth attitudes towards the future, both generally and with respect to graduating college. Using multivariate regression models that incorporated a wide range of control variables and data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we found that youth who experienced police stops without an arrest were less optimistic in general and with respect to college graduation. We found the same for youth who experienced vicarious police contact, but for youth who experienced arrest we only found a significant reduction in optimism with respect to college graduation. Therefore, based on our findings and prior scholarship, we argue that social workers should push policymakers to move beyond the status quo and to make significant changes to how they go about promoting public safety.

Investigating the (in)visible: Piloting an integrated methodology to explore multiple forms of violence.

Traditional research methods typically utilize singular forms of data to conceptualize and measure violence. Methodologies designed to examine the impact of violence have been structured to primarily examine the interpersonal. However, scholars in community psychology, anthropology, and social work, and so forth, have recognized additional dimensions of violence that impact marginalized populations by restricting agency and negatively affecting physical and mental health, such as structural violence. Given growing interest in multiple forms of violence, new methodologies are required to holistically capture the full impact of violence on individuals. This article will discuss a unique methodology designed to investigate multiple forms of violence by melding semi-structured place-based interviews, family history interviews, walking interviews, and physiological data on heart rate coordinated with GPS data. This novel combination of methods allowed the researcher to deepen understanding of the relationship between place and violence while also highlighting the voices and experiences of young adults. Challenges to data collection, limitations of technology, and insights gained from the methodology will be discussed.

Violence in Rural, Suburban, and Urban Schools in Pennsylvania.

School violence is a public health issue with direct and collateral consequences that has academic and social impacts for youth. School violence is often considered a uniquely urban problem, yet more research is needed to understand how violence in rural and suburban schools may be similar or different from urban counterparts. Using school violence data from a state with urban, suburban, and rural counties, we explored the landscape of school violence in Pennsylvania (PA) through mapping, descriptive statistics, and factor analysis. Results show school violence is not solely an urban problem. Schools in all county types and across grade levels deal with violence to varying degrees, and the majority of schools across county types experience low levels of violence. Types of violence experienced by PA schools loaded onto three factors, suggesting that targeted interventions may be better suited to addressing school violence.

Neighbourhood social trust and youth perceptions of safety during daily activities.

Exposure to adverse neighbourhood conditions can negatively impact adolescent well-being and perceived safety. However, the impact of neighbourhood social trust on perceived safety is largely unknown. We studied 139 adolescent men to investigate how their perceptions of safety varied as a function of social trust levels in the neighbourhoods they traversed; neighbourhoods that were not necessarily their own. Adolescents mapped their minute-by-minute activities over a recent day and rated their perceived safety on a 10-point scale during in-person interviews. Neighbourhood social trust was measured via a citywide random sample survey. Mixed effects regression showed that, compared with their safety perceptions when in areas of low social trust, older adolescents were 73% more likely to feel unsafe when in areas of medium social trust, and 89% more likely to feel unsafe when in areas of high social trust. Inverse relationships between neighbourhood social trust and adolescents' perceived safety highlight the complex interplay between youth, environmental contexts and safety.

Letters to the editor in response to studies of guns in the home and homicide and suicide.

BACKGROUND: Letters to the editor are an important venue for scientific discussion and ensuring accountability of authors and editors. We investigated the content and tone of letters to the editor published in response to research on having a firearm in the home as it relates to homicide and suicide. METHODS: A recent meta-analysis found 16 analytic studies of household firearm access and homicide and suicide. We audited the letters to the editor emanating from those 16 articles. Each letter was coded for themes by two raters and analyzed using descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. For comparison, we also coded and analyzed the content of letters to the editor written in response to all other articles that were published in the same journal volumes where the firearm articles appeared. RESULTS: We identified 30 letters regarding the gun in the home studies: 24 (80%) letters to the editor and 6 (20%) replies from original authors. Of the 24 letters to the editor, 30% contained no scientific discussion, 46% made a political reference, 17% criticized the original author's character, and 25% criticized the journal. Moreover, 29% made a pro-gun reference, 25% made an anti-gun reference, 13% referred to the constitutional right to bear arms, 13% referred to the National Rifle Association (NRA), and 0% referred to advocacy organizations known to be in opposition to the NRA. Of these themes mentioned in letters to the editor, only the NRA was mentioned in a response by an original author. The median number of scientific citations in letters to the editor was one versus four in replies from original authors. In the articles on topics other than firearms that were analyzed as a point of comparison, only 8% contained no scientific discussion, 4% made a political reference, 2% criticized the authors' character, and 0% criticized the journal. CONCLUSIONS: Letters to the editor in response to epidemiologic research on guns in the home contain considerable content that minimally advances scientific discussion; author responses meet a higher standard for science and civility, as do letters to the editor regarding research topics other than firearms. The scientific study of firearm violence could be better served with more letters containing greater scientific commentary and dissent.