Side-by-side: An evaluation of Connecticut’s police and youth interaction model

This study evaluated a community-based intervention program designed to promote positive youth development and to create positive interactions between police and youth in a non-enforcement environment. A pre–post-design was used to compare the results of the program for participating youth and police officers, particularly changes in each group’s attitudes toward the other. The results showed that participation in the program improved police officers’ and youths’ attitudes toward each other. For youth, the rate of change in attitudes was greatest for minority youth and for youth who had prior negative experience with the police. That is, youth who had negative prior experiences with police and began with negative attitudes toward police developed more positive attitudes toward police as a result of participating in the program. Furthermore, having opportunities for positive interactions between police and youth played an important role in decreasing negative perceptions of police for ethnic minority youth. This study suggests that community-based programs that involve police with youth can improve participants’ attitude toward each other, which might impact future interactions.     

Disproportionality and Resource‐Based Environmental Inequality: An Analysis of Neighborhood Proximity to Coal Impoundments in Appalachia

Environmental hazards created by resource extraction impose numerous risks on rural populations, but have been understudied in quantitative analyses of environmental inequality. This study fills that gap by examining whether neighborhoods with socioeconomic disadvantages are disproportionately proximate to coal impoundments in Appalachia. Coal impoundments are large, hazardous dams that hold billions of gallons of wastewater and slurry, a sludge‐like by‐product of processing coal. I ground this study in William Freudenburg's double diversion framework, which highlights “disproportionality”—the unequal trade‐off between economic benefits and environmental costs of certain industries. Disproportionality is evident in Appalachia, where coal mining makes up a small percentage of the region's jobs, but threatens local communities through the creation of environmental hazards. Spatial regression results indicate that neighborhoods closest to impoundments are slightly more likely to have higher rates of poverty and unemployment, even after controlling for rurality, mining‐related variables, and spatial dependence. The findings also suggest that a neighborhood's proximity to past mining activity is a stronger predictor of impoundment proximity than current levels of mining employment. This article lays the groundwork for future research on resource‐based environmental inequality that considers the uneven spatial distribution of hazards created by resource extraction.     

A Note On The Changing Geography Of Cancer Mortality Within Metropolitan Regions Of The United States

An investigation made of the geography of cancer mortality rates within the most populous metropolitan regions of the United States and the New Jersey-New York-Philadelphia metropolitan corridor shows that during the early 1950s, as expected, central city counties had substantially higher cancer mortality rates, especially respiratory and digestive, than did suburbs. Two decades later, differences between the central cities and the suburbs had narrowed and sometimes disappeared.     

Older women who experience mistreatment:circumstances and outcomes

Data from Virginia Adult Protective Services (APS) case files of 95 abused women aged 60 years and older were assessed to establish demographic trends; ability to care for self; type, pattern, and place of abuse; information on witnesses and alleged offenders; and case resolution and outcomes. The most common types of mistreatment reported were neglect, exploitation, and physical abuse. The women typically had several functional limitations and were dependent upon their family members for care. Most cases were not prosecuted, and the majority of women remain at risk for further abuse. Implications of these data for future research and practice are discussed.     

Estimates of induced abortion in urban North Carolina

In 1965, Warner developed an interviewing procedure designed to eliminate evasive answer bias when questions of a sensitive nature are asked. He called the procedure ‘randomized response.’ The authors have been studying the technique for several years and, in this paper, are reporting some of the estimates of induced abortion in urban North Carolina using randomized response. Estimates of the proportion of women having an abortion during the past year among women 18–44 years of age are reported. For the study population indices were developed relating induced abortion to total conceptions for whites and nonwhites. The illegal abortion rate per 100 conceptions was estimated to be 14.9 for whites and 32.9 for nonwhites. Estimates of the proportion of women having an abortion during their lifetime among women 18 years old or over are also shown. Among ever married women, the proportion having an abortion during their lifetime declined as education increased. Estimates were high for women with 5 or more pregnancies. Most of the respondents stated that they were satisfied that the randomized response approach would not reveal their personal situation. Furthermore, they did not think their friends would truthfully respond to adirect question regarding abortion.     

Multi-dimensional poverty in Australia and the barriers ill health imposes on the employment of the disadvantaged

A little over one million individuals in Australia between the ages of 24 and 64 years are in Freedom poverty – they have low family income, and have either poor health or an insufficient level of education. These individuals are some of the most disadvantaged in society due to their multiple capability restrictions. Current political rhetoric focused on reducing the number of individuals out of the labour force to improve their living standards may offer a means of improving the lives of these most disadvantaged individuals. Indeed, of those in Freedom poverty, 80% are not in employment. But these individuals also have poor health and/or a poor education and these capability limitations may act as barriers to their labour force participation. Indeed, 49% of individuals in freedom poverty who were out of the labour force cited ill health as the reason for this (39% cited their own ill health, and 10% cited another's ill health). Not only will these individual's ill health act as a barrier to their engaging in the labour force, but ill health will also contribute to reduced quality of life. Political promises to improve the lives of citizens should not focus narrowly upon increasing labour force participation rates, but should take a holistic view of the lives of individuals taking note in particular of how health may be restraining their quality of life.     

Promising practices for delivery of court-supervised substance abuse treatment: perspectives from six high-performing California counties operating Proposition 36

Operative for nearly a decade, California's voter-initiated Proposition 36 program offers many offenders community-based substance abuse treatment in lieu of likely incarceration. Research has documented program successes and plans for replication have proliferated, yet very little is known about how the Proposition 36 program works or practices for achieving optimal program outcomes. In this article, we identify policies and practices that key stakeholders perceive to be most responsible for the successful delivery of court-supervised substance abuse treatment to offenders under Proposition 36. Data was collected via focus groups conducted with 59 county stakeholders in six high-performing counties during 2009. Discussion was informed by seven empirical indicators of program performance and outcomes and was focused on identifying and describing elements contributing to success. Program success was primarily attributed to four strategies, those that: (1) fostered program engagement, monitored participant progress, and sustained cooperation among participants; (2) cultivated buy-in among key stakeholders; (3) capitalized on the role of the court and the judge; and (4) created a setting which promoted a high-quality treatment system, utilization of existing resources, and broad financial and political support for the program. Goals and practices for implementing each strategy are discussed. Findings provide a "promising practices" resource for Proposition 36 program evaluation and improvement and inform the design and study of other similar types of collaborative justice treatment efforts.     

Team factors that predict to sustainability indicators for community-based prevention teams

Because they often set out with a guarantee of only short-term funding, many community partnerships will face a threat to their sustainability almost as soon as the first money runs out. Research into the factors that enable some coalitions and partnerships to meet the challenge when others fail is limited. This study begins to fill this gap in our understanding by examining influences on the process of sustainability planning in the context of a collaborative partnership focused on youth development. We report on a longitudinal examination of the quality of planning and attitudes underpinning the sustainability of PROSPER community prevention teams whose members implement evidence-based programs designed to support positive youth development and reduce early substance use and other problem behaviors. The current research concentrates on a particular dimension of partnership effectiveness to establish whether perceptions about team functioning in play at 6 and 18 months predict the quality of sustainability planning at 36 and 48 months. How well teams functioned in the early stages was found to be strongly related to the quality of their later preparations for sustainability. Recruitment and integration of new team members, and the encouragement they subsequently received were also found to be key factors. The results strengthen the argument for providing technical assistance to meet the needs of those who promote prevention partnerships, and they provide longitudinal empirical data to support the hypotheses of other researchers who have similarly found a correlation between effective sustainability and early planning and support.