Pre-arrest drug use and associated risk factors among incarcerated offenders in China

ABSTRACT

Past research has consistently reported a higher rate of drug use before arrest among incarcerated inmates than that of the general population. However, there is a lack of either qualitative or quantitative research on this topic under the Chinese setting. Drawing upon survey data collected from 1,518 inmates in a Chinese province, this study attempts to fill in the research gap by assessing the connection between risk factors associated with pre-arrest use. Roughly a quarter of all inmates in the sample had the experience of drug use before arrest. Regression analysis suggested that impulsivity, volatile temper, and perceived prevalence of drug use in neighborhood were significantly related to drug use among inmates. Two control variables include offense type and stable job, were also found to be significant predictors of drug use. Implications for research and policy were highlighted in the end.     

The paradox of illicit economies: survival,resilience, and the limits of development and drug policy orthodoxy

ABSTRACT

The illicit drug crops opium and coca are conventionally regarded as sources of instability, an ‘evil’ that breeds fragility and violence. Fragile states are supposed to be most vulnerable to their production and consequent harms. Yet by looking into the local contexts of the world’s leading opium and coca producers – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia and Bolivia – these illicit crops are found to also be sources of stability, even drivers of economic growth. They enable marginalized communities and territories abandoned by the state to be reinserted into national and global markets. Within so-called ‘fragile’ and conflict-affected areas are displaced and dispossessed households adopting innovative and unorthodox strategies for coping and survival in changing and insecure environments. This paper maps out an approach, useful for examining the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories, and which can hopefully tackle the continuing disconnect between drugs and development policy.     

Heterogeneous Perspectives in Coalitions and Community-Based Responses to Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation: Implications for Practice

ABSTRACT

Despite increases in community-based coalitions to address sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), and the coinciding ideological debates surrounding sexual commerce, few studies have examined the dynamics between and perspectives among coalition members. This paper aims to explore 1) coalition members' perspectives on religion, politics, feminism, sex trafficking/sex work, neoliberalism/neo-abolitionism and 2) the impacts of such perspectives on coalition members' anti-trafficking/CSE work. Drawing from a larger qualitative study, 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with current and former coalition members in an urban Midwestern city. Findings suggest varied religious identities, which challenged some providers in coordinating services for the lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community or women with a history of or considering abortions. Providers generally identified as democrat as well as feminist in some way, but had conflicting views of sexual commerce. These competing ideologies created challenges for cohesive coalition action. Consequently, it may be essential to facilitate intergroup dialogues addressing diverse perspectives, come to consensus on goals, or develop subgroup goals in order to create a functioning inter-agency response. Future studies should explore such dynamics across multiple coalitions nationwide and the impact such perspectives may have on survivors engaging in services.     

政府奖惩机制下药品安全质量监管三方演化博弈及仿真分析

药品安全关乎人民群众生命健康、经济发展、社会稳定和国家安全，一直以来都是政府和全社会关注的热点问题之一。但是，近年来频发的各类药品安全事件，揭露了政府监管缺失、药品检测机制不完善、公众投诉失效等诸多问题。本文考虑了药品检测中存在寻租现象，构建了药品生产企业、第三方药品检测机构和政府监管部门之间的三方演化博弈模型，分析了各参与方策略选择的演化稳定性，探讨了各要素对三方策略选择的影响关系，进一步分析了三方博弈系统中均衡点的稳定性。研究结果表明：1)政府增强奖励、惩罚力度均有助于促进企业生产高药效药品、第三方药品检测机构拒绝寻租的规范行为，但是增大奖励力度将不利于政府自身履行监管职责；2)政府设定合理的奖惩机制必须符合对各方的奖惩之和大于其投机收益的条件，才能保障演化稳定市场环境下的药品安全；3)上级政府对监管部门失职的问责对增强企业生产高药效药品的稳健性具有重要意义；4)提升企业的药品销售收益、增加企业寻租成本也是避免企业生产低药效药品的有效途径。最后，利用Matlab 2020b进行了仿真分析，为政府完善药品监管机制提出了对策与建议。     

Going solo: the social organisation of drug dealing within a London street gang

This paper presents a single case study of one street gang in one London borough. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 gang members, or former gang members, and seven practitioners. The practitioners and gang members/ex-gang members reported different perspectives on how the gang was structured and drug dealing was organised. The gang members/ex-gang members suggested that the gang is a loose social network with little recognisable formal organisation. Although individual gang members sell drugs, the gang should not be viewed as a drug dealing organisation. Rather it is a composition of individual drug dealers who cooperate out of mutual self-interest. Therefore, some gang members are best described as independent entrepreneurs while others are subcontractors looking to ‘go solo’. The seven practitioners, however, tended to describe a more hierarchically structured gang, with formal recruitment processes. This divergence of perspective highlights an important consideration for policy and research.     

Phase I trial design for drug combinations with Bayesian model averaging

Various statistical models have been proposed for two‐dimensional dose finding in drug‐combination trials. However, it is often a dilemma to decide which model to use when conducting a particular drug‐combination trial. We make a comprehensive comparison of four dose‐finding methods, and for fairness, we apply the same dose‐finding algorithm under the four model structures. Through extensive simulation studies, we compare the operating characteristics of these methods in various practical scenarios. The results show that different models may lead to different design properties and that no single model performs uniformly better in all scenarios. As a result, we propose using Bayesian model averaging to overcome the arbitrariness of the model specification and enhance the robustness of the design. We assign a discrete probability mass to each model as the prior model probability and then estimate the toxicity probabilities of combined doses in the Bayesian model averaging framework. During the trial, we adaptively allocated each new cohort of patients to the most appropriate dose combination by comparing the posterior estimates of the toxicity probabilities with the prespecified toxicity target. The simulation results demonstrate that the Bayesian model averaging approach is robust under various scenarios. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“America Will Not Tolerate Slave Traders”: Counter-Trafficking Policies and US Power

The US government has implemented an ambitious set of policies designed to combat human trafficking and sex trafficking in women and girls in particular. This article argues that anti-trafficking discourse and policy can be understood as a project to sustain and strengthen US power. This power has been wielded through the use of foreign aid, which influences the actions of both state and non-state actors overseas. Existing policies reinforce unilateralism and executive-branch dominance. Policymakers have also used gender strategically to moralize their actions and assert global leadership on this issue. Gender is thus deployed to serve US interests.     

A qualitative case study of a Korean former addict’s existential self‐interpretation and identity transformation

This study explored the case of a former addict, focusing on his existential self‐interpretation and identity transformation process. This study began from the question of whether philosophical processes related to existential self‐interpretation could lead to the formation of the concept of bottoming out and of identity transformation. To answer this question, the study analyzed the case of a male in his mid‐forties who was addicted to drugs for approximately 30 years and has only recently maintained abstinence. The study used the phenomenological approach to determine the meaning drugs held for him in each stage, and what drug‐related identity he had in each stage. Further, this study identified the integrative implications of these meanings in terms of existential self‐interpretation and identity transformation. The four different identities the man identified for the four stages of his life were juvenile delinquent, gang member, half‐gangster, and breadwinner, and the associated meanings drugs had for him during each period were “glue,” “filthy,” “leeches,” and “abstinence,” respectively. Finally, this study elucidated the integration of these meanings through the hermeneutic circle, identified the social welfare implications of the findings, and developed educational recommendations.     

Synergy evaluation of non-normalizable dose–response data: Generalization of combination index for the linear effect of drugs

The study of drug synergy plays a prominent role in the search for drug combinations with beneficial interactions. Firstly, in this process, the drug-effect response of individual parts and the mixture needs to be derived. This function is usually well described by Hill (or other logistic or sigmoid) curve. Due to its boundedness, it allows the measured data to be normalized. The normalized data can then be processed by interaction analysis using the Loewe, Bliss, or other models to evaluate possible synergy or antagonism of two or more drugs. However, sometimes, the drug-effect responses observed in pharmaceutical research do not appear to be bounded. Theoretically, the drug-effect curve cannot grow to infinity, but it may be impossible to determine its upper bound within the observed region. In this case, standard models cannot be used, since they assume that data are normalized. The approach of this article bypasses the need to normalize the data, allowing its broader application and usefulness in finding potential synergies in pharmaceutical research.     

Korean Survivors of the Japanese “Comfort Women” System: Understanding the Lifelong Consequences of Early Life Trauma

Prior to and during World War II, thousands of girls and young women were abducted from Korea and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government. Termed comfort women, these girls and young women suffered extreme sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and trauma. Research on this group is not well-developed and people know little of the impact of this early life trauma on the lives of these women who are now in later life. Using snowball sampling, 16 older adult survivors of the comfort women system participated in semistructured qualitative interviews. Thematic analysis was conducted to gain an understanding of the trauma that these women suffered and how it impacted their lives. Results revealed the depths of the abuse these women suffered, including repeated rapes, physical beatings, humiliation, forced surgery and sterilization, and social exclusion. These early traumatic experiences appeared to reverberate throughout their lives in their family relations, their inability to marry and to conceive children, and their emotional and physical well-being throughout the life course and into later life. The experiences of these survivors illustrate the lasting impact of early-life trauma and can guide interventions with current survivors of sexual abuse or trafficking.