An Exploration of Family and Juvenile Justice Systems to Reduce Youth HIV/STI Risk

Using in‐depth interviews with 20 probation youth (60% female; 35% White; 30% Hispanic; mean age: 15 years, range = 13–17), their caregivers (100% female; mean age: 44 years, range = 34–71), and 12 female probation officers (100% White; mean age: 46 years, range = 34–57), we explored how family and probation systems exacerbate or mitigate sexual risk. We conducted thematic analyses of interviews, comparing narratives of families of sexually risky (n = 9) versus nonsexually risky (n = 11) youth. Family functioning differed by youth sexual risk behavior around quality of relationships, communication, and limit setting and monitoring. The involvement of families of sexually risky youth in probation positively influenced family functioning. Data suggest that these families are amenable to intervention and may benefit from family‐based HIV/STI interventions delivered in tandem with probation.     

Conflict Resolution Between Mexican Origin Adolescent Siblings

We investigated correlates of adolescents’ sibling conflict resolution strategies in 246, two‐parent Mexican origin families. Specifically, we examined links between siblings’ conflict resolution strategies and sibling dyad characteristics, siblings’ cultural orientations and values, and sibling relationship qualities. Data were gathered during home interviews with adolescent siblings. Older siblings were more likely to use controlling strategies whereas younger siblings were more likely to use nonconfrontation strategies. Cultural orientations and familism values were positively linked to siblings’ solution orientation. Solution orientation strategies were associated with sibling intimacy, and control strategies were related to sibling negativity. Discussion highlights the importance of considering the cultural context in which sibling relationships are embedded.     

Interdisciplinary Vision: The First 25 Years of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), 1980–2005

In early 1979 Robert B. Cumming recognized the growing need for risk researchers and practitioners to publish their work in a dedicated professional journal. This led to the formation of an organization to support such a journal, with the Certificate of Incorporation for the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) made official on August 28, 1980. The first issue of Risk Analysis: An International Journal appeared in March 1981. This article reviews the history of the SRA's first 25 years. It reviews the SRA's formation and growth, provides analyses of its major products (the journal, newsletter, conferences, and meetings), and discusses its impact. This article relies on published literature and a history of the SRA's first 20 years written by two of the authors. This history covers the SRA's many successes, which demonstrate the strength and vitality of the organization and provide optimism for its future. These successes include this journal, which published over 2,150 papers between March 1981 and this December 2005 issue. The successes also include its stable membership of approximately 2,000 members from 43 countries, well-attended annual meetings, and increasing support for true international growth as demonstrated by international risk forums like the World Congress on Risk held in Brussels in June 2003. Similarly, the history also covers the SRA's challenges and difficulties, with the recognition that these provide both an important context about the organization and the opportunity to learn from past experiences. These include the challenges associated with spin-off organizations that decreased the SRA membership in some disciplinary areas, notably in engineering and exposure assessment. This history also includes quantitative analyses of the contents of the first 25 years of Risk Analysis: An International Journal. The results show significant growth in the number of articles published each year, starting with approximately 30 articles published in the first few years to over 120 articles per year now. They also show a relatively even distribution of articles in the life, physical, and social sciences, which demonstrate the sustained commitment of the SRA and the journal to support interdisciplinary risk-related research. The SRA organizational structure currently includes two sections (SRA-Europe and SRA-Japan), 22 Chapters, and nine Specialty Groups, and the structure remains somewhat in flux. We present this history in five sections that cover major themes: (1) SRA formation, (2) membership and organization, (3) publications, (4) meetings, and (5) thematic issues. Like any organization of its size, the SRA boasts a long and diverse history, and no article can possibly capture it all. We hope that in documenting the first 25 years, we strengthen the SRA by providing some perspective on its roots and a rigorous quantitative analysis of some of its products.     

Walking an Emotional Tightrope: Managing Emotions in a Women's Prison

Until recently, the emotional experiences of women in prison have been overlooked by symbolic interactionists and social scientists. Similarly, research relevant to the sociology of emotions has not been explored in the social context of a correctional institution for women. The purpose of this study is to investigate emotional experiences from the unique perspective of incarcerated women. This research examines how women in prison perceive and manage their emotional lives while confined and asks whether their chosen strategies have an impact on their interactions and thus affect the institutional environment. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews with thirty‐five women incarcerated in a correctional institution located in the midwestern United States. Using a semistructured interview schedule, respondents were asked about a range of topics, one of which involved their emotional lives while incarcerated. Findings indicate these women define their emotional experiences as being simultaneously provocative and constrained. Respondents suggest that their emotional resources are individually, contextually, and culturally grounded. They discuss employing various strategies to manage their emotional lives while incarcerated, including diversions, spiritual pursuits, blocking exercises, self‐reflection, and humor. The majority of the techniques employed to control emotions are intrapersonal. Respondents describe personal efforts designed to manage their emotional experiences rather than share their feelings with others.     

Social workers in private practice: An update

This article presents a current portrait of social work private practitioners, based on data collected in 1992 from a randomly drawn national sample. It provides information on the demographic characteristics of practitioners, their fees, caseload characteristics, theoretical orientations and reflections on the rigors of independent practice in the 1990s.     

Estimation of Tuberculosis Risk on a Commercial Airliner

This article estimates the risk of tuberculosis (TB) transmission on a typical commercial airliner using a simple one box model (OBM) and a sequential box model (SBM). We used input data derived from an actual TB exposure on an airliner, and we assumed a hypothetical scenario that a highly infectious TB source case (i.e., 108 infectious quanta per hour) travels as a passenger on an 8.7-hour flight. We estimate an average risk of TB transmission on the order of 1 chance in 1,000 for all passengers using the OBM. Applying the more realistic SBM, we show that the risk and incidence decrease sharply in a stepwise fashion in cabins downstream from the cabin containing the source case assuming some potential for airflow from more contaminated to less contaminated cabins. We further characterized spatial variability in the risk within the cabin by modeling a previously reported TB outbreak in an airplane to demonstrate that the TB cases occur most likely within close proximity of the source TB patient.     

Normative collective behavior in the Station building fire

Objective. This article offers a test of the normative explanation of collective behavior by examining the fire at the Station nightclub in Rhode Island that killed 100 and injured nearly 200 persons.Methods. Information on all persons at the club comes from content analysis of documents from the Rhode Island Police Department, the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, and The Providence Journal. We use negative binomial regression to test hypotheses about the effects of group-level predictors of the counts of dead and injured in 179 groups at the nightclub.Results. Results indicate that group-level factors such as distance of group members at the start of the fire, the number of intimate relations among them, the extent to which they had visited the nightclub prior to the incident, and the average length of the evacuation route they used predict counts of injured and dead. The research also looks at what behavioral differences exist between survivors and victims, ascertains the existence of role extension among employees of the nightclub, and provides support for the affirmation that dangerous contexts negate the protective influence of intimate relations in groups.Conclusion. We argue for the abandonment of current emphasis on irrationality and herd-like imitative behavior in studies of evacuation from structural fires in buildings and for the inclusion of group-level processes in social psychological explanations of these incidents.     

Undergraduate students' attributions of depicted adult-adolescent and adolescent-adolescent sexual interactions

The grayest areas of defining child sexual abuse appear to involve the age and sex of the individuals involved, resulting in a potential for different attributions regarding child sexual abuse across individuals. As a result, this study examines the responses of 262 male and female college student participants after viewing a series of hypothetical sexual abuse vignettes that depicted a 15-year-old victim that neither resisted nor encouraged the advances of a 15-, 25-, or 35-year-old perpetrator's actions. Gender roles and sexual attitudes were examined as potentially important covariates. Using a series of analyses of covariance, female participants gave more pro-victim ratings than male participants, and younger perpetrators were viewed less negatively than older perpetrators. Gender roles and sexual attitudes served as significant covariates. These findings emphasized the need to educate individuals about child sexual abuse and unwanted sexual contact involving individuals under the age of consent.     

Internalizing symptoms linking youths' maltreatment and delinquent behavior

This study examines internalizing mental health symptoms (depression and posttraumatic stress disorder) as potential intervening factors in the relationship between maltreatment and delinquency using data from the National Survey for Child and Adolescent Well-Being (N = 1179). Significant mediating effects indicated that youth at greater risk of maltreatment experienced higher levels of internalizing symptoms that result in increased risk for delinquent behavior, although longitudinal effects were not supported. These findings highlight internalizing mental health symptoms as an important factor to address in treating victimized children at risk of future delinquency. Implications for child welfare service provision are discussed.