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The UK has the highest rate of cannabis use among young people worldwide. Dr. Alan Leshner, Director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse reports, "Every year more than 100,000 people, most of them adolescents, seek treatment for their inability to control their marijuana use." According to the Scottish Drug Misuse Statistics in Scotland 2002, 51% of individuals under 20 years have used cannabis. Cannabis use is not limited to youth; it is also the single-most used illicit drug among adults. Because of their widespread negative impact, illicit drugs have become a focus of the agenda of the English Parliament and there is ongoing debate on how to combat this problem. As the research assistant of Michael Matheson (MSP), the author compiled this report to gather information on cannabis and to assess approaches that would form the most effective cannabis policy. This research explores whether or not the recent change toward decriminalization is adequate, or if it needs further revising.

In 1999, the American College Health Association (ACHA) Executive Committee issued a position statement for the Association that addresses acts of violence, bias, and other violations of human rights that have been occurring all too often within or adjacent to college communities. The statement called for all campus health professionals to become actively engaged in the struggle to end oppression, to prevent bias-related violence in campus communities, and to take action to eradicate injustice. Since this timely position statement was developed, acts of violence have continued to force U.S. colleges and universities to address the dangerous and alarming violent events that send shockwaves throughout many campuses and compromise students' and employees' health and safety. ACHA's "Healthy Campus 2010" establishes national health objectives and serves as a basis for developing plans to create college health programs and improve student health. The purpose of this White Paper is to confront the serious college health issues through analyzing campus violence patterns, types of violence, methodological problems with collecting campus crime data, underlying issues related to campus violence, and promising practices to prevent and address campus violence. (Contains 18 online resources.)

Background: Specific treatment and interventions for individuals with Autism Spectrum Conditions who display harmful sexual behaviour have yet to be widely evaluated. This review aims to consolidate and assess the quality of research exploring non-pharmacological interventions for individuals with Autism Spectrum Conditions who display harmful sexual behaviour. Method: A systemic search of electronic databases was conducted. Articles were considered for inclusion, according to identified inclusion and exclusion criteria. At the end of the search, ten papers were deemed suitable for inclusion. Results: Ten studies were considered eligible for review, including a study of follow-up data of one of the original studies. Quality assessment indicated that the majority of papers provided weak research evidence, with only two papers receiving an "adequate" rating. A consistent methodological flaw was the lack of control groups for group interventions. Conclusions: There is currently a very small research base exploring non-pharmacological interventions for individuals with Autism Spectrum Conditions who display harmful sexual behaviour. The current research is littered with methodological flaws, however reveals some useful information regarding the use of functional behaviour assessment and individualised treatment planning, as well as some of the limitations of using adapted group CBT interventions. Suggestions for future research include; studies evaluating the effectiveness of behavioural interventions for individuals with Autism Spectrum Conditions who display harmful sexual behaviour, studies which include female participants, studies which utilise control groups where appropriate, and an evaluation of interventions for those with Autism Spectrum Conditions without Intellectual Disabilities.

Economists and political scientists have long debated the relations between economic inequality and corruption at the societal level. Extending this literature, we proposed and tested that economic inequality breeds the corrupt behaviour of individuals. Analyses of 45-year archival data from the United States found that official corruption crimes were more prevalent in years and states with greater economic inequality. Three subsequent experiments (N = 776) using economic games showed that individuals exposed to greater economic inequality exhibited more corrupt behaviour in both Chinese and American cultures. Furthermore, the increased desire for wealth and the perception of reduced fairness accounted for this effect. These findings highlight that excessive economic inequality creates a competitive environment in which people give priority to themselves over others and suggest a vicious cycle between economic inequality and corruption., (© 2022 British Psychological Society.)

Infant misidentification and abduction are recognized as "never" events for hospitals in the United States. As near misses are often unreported, root cause analysis of observed near misses may fail to uncover important contributors. We utilized failure mode and effects analysis to proactively identify and eliminate or reduce the risk of infant misidentification or abduction. We prioritized action plans based upon the highest risk priority failures and developed steps to eliminate the gaps in the infant identification process and the security within the Center for Women & Infants. The analysis identified 28 failure modes. Team discussion of the failure modes also yielded several collateral benefits of improvements in the unit climate. We present and discuss the action plans that were undertaken by the hospital to increase patient safety and reduce the risk of infant misidentification and abduction., (Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

In 2017, the Trump Administration restored local law enforcement agencies' access to military weapons and some other types of surplus military equipment (SME) that had been prohibited by the Obama Administration. The Justice Department background paper used to justify this decision cited two papers published by the American Economic Association. These papers used SME data collected with a 2014 Freedom of Information Act request and concluded that SME, supplied to local law enforcement by the federal government via the 1033 Program, reduces crime. Here we show that the findings of these studies are not credible due to problems with the data. Using more detailed audit data on 1033 SME, we show that the 2014 data are flawed and that the more recent data provide no evidence that 1033 SME reduces crime.

This article explores gaming manifestations of the US-centric Mexican threat narrative in the context of the so-called drug war, by analyzing Manichean representations of characters, settings, and language (English and Spanish). It argues that videogames construct the concept of the Mexican subject in direct opposition to the US subject--in a decontextualized enemy-hero dialectic--fueling damaging stereotypes that have important repercussions in social, economic, and political discourses in and about Mexico and the United States. This paper examines the stereotypes of Mexican peoples and cartels in videogames depicting the drug conflict and released between 2011 and 2016: "Call of Juarez: The Cartel," "Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel," "Grand Theft Auto V," and "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands." Additionally, it reflects on projects such as "NarcoGuerra," which aims at counteracting stereotyped hegemonic discourses by promoting informed and empathetic representations of the so-called war on drugs. The overarching goal of this analysis is to provide an insight into gaming representations of the relationship between Mexico and the United States, the geopolitics of drug trafficking, and the neocolonial hegemonic frameworks that fuel them.

The main threats to world order are terrorist and extremist activities. On the world stage, countries unite into a coalition with the aim to increase the efficiency of the fight against terrorism. At the local level, the terrorist threat is fought by the security services. In order to prevent global human victims, which may arise as a result of terrorist attacks, the government is taking a number of normative legal acts, which prevent the activities of militants. The main problem that arises in the preparation of the law is the lack of a clear understanding of what the "terrorism" and "extremism" are. Therefore, in this paper, a complete analysis of these terms will be made on the basis of normative legal acts of some countries such as the USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, and scientists specialized in the subject. Research of the terms "extremism" and "terrorism" has shown that these concepts are different, but at the same time interconnected. This relationship is expressed in the fact that terrorism is a continuation of extremism, its next step. The disengagement of these concepts will allow the legislator to create more specific laws, that will cover the entire field of criminal activities.

Background: Multiple approaches exist, both in theory and in practice, to reduce young people's risk of violent victimization when they are in school. Among these approaches, a growing number of school districts are choosing to install metal detectors. We sought to review the literature available on the impacts of metal detectors on school violence and perceptions about school violence. Methods: We conducted an extensive literature search, including databases for the medical, public health, sociology, and political science literature. Of 128 papers that met our search criteria, 7 studies met inclusion criteria for the literature review. Results: Each of the papers reviewed utilized data that originated from self-report surveys. Four of the studies consisted of secondary analyses of national databases, with the other 3 utilizing local surveys. The studies varied as to the outcome, ranging from student/staff perceptions of safety at school to student self-reports of weapon carrying and/or victimization, and showed mixed results. Several studies suggested potential detrimental effects of metal detectors on student perceptions of safety. One study showed a significant beneficial effect, linking metal detector use to a decrease in the likelihood that students reported carrying a weapon while in school (7.8% vs 13.8%), without a change in weapon carrying in other settings or a decline in participation in physical fights. Conclusion: There is insufficient data in the literature to determine whether the presence of metal detectors in schools reduces the risk of violent behavior among students, and some research suggests that the presence of metal detectors may detrimentally impact student perceptions of safety. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper investigates the psychological effects from stock market returns. Using an FBI database of over 55 million daily reported crime incidents across the United States, crime is proposed as a measure of psychological well-being. The evidence suggests that stock returns affect the well-being of not only investors but also noninvestors. Specifically, a contemporaneous negative (positive) relationship between daily stock market returns and violent crime rates is found for investors (noninvestors). A similar relationship is also found between local earnings surprises and violent crime. The contrasting relationships for investors and noninvestors suggests that relative wealth may influence well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two computer viruses that have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage over the past four years are the Melissa and the Sasser virus. In March of 1999, the Melissa virus first appeared on the Internet and spread rapidly throughout computer systems in the United States and Europe. The virus made its way through 1.2 million computers in the United States alone. On December 9, 1999, David Smith pleaded guilty to state and federal charges associated with his creation of the Melissa virus (Vamosi, 2003). Reasons for writing the viruses; "boredom", "the challenge", and "that's what I'm good at, what I like to do. In May, 2004, the Sasser virus was released by an 18 year old in Germany (Williams, 2004). The arrest made on this "script kiddie" was the first which used Microsoft's $5,000,000 fund, even though millions has been offered for information on other viruses. Unfortunately, young virus creators are unwilling to turn one another in, claiming they write viruses because they have nothing else to do or because they just want to see what happens. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, this paper will describe the extent of Internet/cyber use by American students. Second, this paper will present data from a resent research project showing the large amount of cyber crimes are secondary students are aware of and are participating in. Finally, this paper will present scenarios which might help the reader understand why ethical choices of today's script kiddies are not as black and white as the reader might think. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Higher education institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom increasingly require prospective students to disclose past criminal history on admissions applications. However, a social movement aimed at improving opportunities for people with criminal records may force higher education to reconsider this practice. This paper offers a descriptive comparative analysis of admissions policies for people with criminal records in the US and UK by exploring policy contexts, written policies and admissions data. For the first time, admissions data were collected from a sample of UK universities, finding that while thousands of applicants with criminal records apply to universities, only a small percentage are rejected solely on the basis of their convictions. In addition, variation in the tone and scope of policies appears to reflect the variation in national criminal records laws between the US and UK. These, and other findings, have implications for the continued use of these policies.

An increase in interest in crimes against people with developmental disabilities (PWDD) has been observed in the past decade. However, little attention has been given to intrafamilial homicides of PWDD. This paper provides a preliminary description of these types of homicides as they affect PWDD. Content analysis of media accounts of intrafamilial homicides of PWDD describes the characteristics of those involved and the circumstances of the homicides. This study examined a subset of data of 1967 homicides of PWDD and found 308 cases of intrafamilial homicide representing the deaths of 314 PWDD. These homicides represented 15.96% of overall homicides of PWDD obtained in the original study. A similar number of homicides of male and female victims were reported. Compared to other family members, biological parents were most frequently implicated in the deaths of PWDD, with biological mothers, acting alone, implicated most often. Biological mothers were most frequently implicated in the deaths of daughters, while biological fathers were most frequently implicated in the deaths of sons. The majority of PWDD who were killed were four years of age or younger. Beating, shooting, neglect, asphyxia, burns, and poisoning were the most common causes of death. Discussion focuses on media representation of homicides, intrafamilial homicide, and prevention. (Contains 4 tables.)

The ten scholarly papers in Sex, Drugs and Body Counts explore the generation and propagation of numbers that drive policy decisions in the U.S. government regarding human trafficking, drug trade, and armed conflict (including the war on terror). Each of these papers, written by different authors, provides an illuminating insight into how some of the numbers we hear or read in the news are derived. While the general message of the papers tends to be depressing, namely that the numbers driving U.S. policy vary from being slightly suspect to clearly fabricated, the book does provide positive examples of how accurate numbers can be obtained and how the numbers that are being used can be interpreted. As a teaching resource, the book provides instructors an opportunity to deepen their understanding of how quantitative data are used in U.S. policy, allowing them to explore these issues in class. Individual papers from the book could be used in a general education course (either in mathematics or in a field related to the topics) as a way to introduce students to reading quantitatively dense material. In a course more focused on the topics of the book and with a more quantitatively literate audience, the entire book could probably be assigned as reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have gained significant attention in recent years for their potential to impact education at a global scale. This paper presents the findings from a study that examined the cases of three MOOCs, including Human Trafficking, US Food System, and Animal Behavior and Welfare, that were specifically designed to effect attitudinal change in its participants, specifically focusing on the three aspects of attitudinal change, cognitive, affective and behavioral as well as general learning. The study examined learners' perceptions of attitudinal change, including according to the MOOC they took, the instructional method utilized, and the influence of attitudinal components on each other. The findings from this research provide a number of implications that could be helpful for understanding instruction and instructional design of MOOCs, particularly those MOOCs addressing attitude change.

This literature review of secondary school teachers' perceptions of student misbehaviour from 1983 to 2013 comprised studies from various countries including Australia, China, Greece, Jordan, Malta, the United Kingdom and the United States. Identified materials enabled international comparisons and the analysis of changes over time. Of the 20 papers included in the final review, most were categorised as looking at perceptions of serious student misbehaviours or high frequency student misbehaviours. The main conclusions were that teacher perceptions of high frequency misbehaviours and serious misbehaviours were largely consistent over time and between countries. Teachers perceived talking out of turn and similar misbehaviours as being most frequent. Teachers consistently perceived stealing and vandalism as serious misbehaviours while more extreme violent or potentially violent behaviours were not reported to occur frequently. The study raises the issue of the lack of a common research methodology in the reviewed materials, including agreed student behaviour descriptors, which impede conclusive recommendations.

This paper empirically investigates the impact of broadband diffusion on crime. I employ state-level data on high-speed Internet penetration and criminal activity in the United States from 2000 to 2012. To tackle the endogeneity of broadband diffusion, I rely on a set of technologically motivated instrumental variables. The outcomes show that the impact of high-speed Internet diffusion on crime is negative and it is not significant for more severe offenses. Concerning the underlying mechanism, I find support for the hypothesis that the broadband-driven crime reduction occurs through a voluntary incapacitation effect, as people change their leisure time allocation by spending more time at home and off the streets. This in turn reduces the availability of criminal opportunities – and crime levels. Finally, my results suggest that the voluntary incapacitation effect concerns both sides of criminal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of crime in the United States is one that has constantly evolved since national efforts began in 1930. However, the measurements of victim and offender characteristics, specifically race and ethnicity, have not developed at the same pace, nor as rapidly for crime data as it has for other fields. This paper examines two primary criminal justice data sources, the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and compares them for context to the United States Census. Analysis shows that the Census has continually expanded racial and ethnic categories while the crime data instruments have mostly refined them only by name. The paper concludes with suggestions for revision of the crime data collection instruments, specifically NIBRS, and a discussion of research and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the passing of the Gun Free School Act of 1994, the 1990s bore witness to the birth of zero-tolerance policies. During the remainder of that decade, several school shootings occurred that solidified zero-tolerance in schools across the United States. With the possibility of threats constantly increasing, school personnel having a thorough understanding of these policies is critical. In this article, the authors analyze the theoretical, empirical, and legal underpinnings of zero-tolerance weapons policies, then argue that these policies are theoretically unsound, are empirically unsupported, and fall prey to several legal critiques. Last, the authors offer recommendations for principals and teachers that would address problems with mens rea and show the value of using threat assessment tools. (Contains 1 table.)

Young Black males are an at-risk group for earning a living through illegal activities in the U.S. As with most at-risk groups, concerted efforts have been made to help prepare them to become viable contributors and valued members of society. Anecdotal evidence shows that faculty members have also tried to reach out and influence young Black males whose enrollments are comparatively low at many colleges and universities. However, the influence of educators and professionals--male and female, of all racial backgrounds--toward opportunities for this at-risk population in the business world has received limited attention. The aim of this paper is to explore the decision-making skills of adolescents, particularly Black American males, who engage in the illegal drug economy in an effort to persuade organizational leaders so that the ambition and aspirations of these young Black males can be transferred to legal business opportunities. It is certainly clear that involvement in the illegal economy cuts across racial and class lines and international borders and that the illegal economy involves more than the selling of drugs. However, a disproportionate number of Black American males are in jail (mostly convicted of drug trafficking) in the United States than any other race or nationality. The author presents a brief discussion of the research on crime and decision-making. Rather than writing off youth who become involved in the illegal economy, the author calls on organizational leaders and academicians to assist these youth in making educational and occupational choices to redirect their careers.

Contemporary North American insecurities and fears are the focus of this article. In the first section, the inter-related concepts of insecurity, fear and vulnerability are theorised, and the argument put forward that these have come to constitute a dominant discourse in contemporary North American society. In the second section of the paper, the components of this discourse are presented by reviewing what North Americans fear, including terrorism, crime and violence, and the "Other". Comparisons and local manifestations of this discourse in Canada, Mexico and the US are described. The final section turns to the educational implications (effects) of this discourse as it has been taken up across the three nations. While other comparativists have focused on phenomena such as globalisation and neo-liberalism to explain contemporary education reform, the author argues that it is the discourse of fear and insecurity that now underpins educational reform. (Contains 2 notes.)

This article discusses the history of the Armenian genocide and the impact it brought on the Armenians. The author relates his experience attending a two-day memorial commemoration in the desert of Syria for the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide that he became fully aware of how profound the memory of that human disaster is for today's Armenians. He found that the most moving and thought-provoking talks were by Armenians who had lost family members in the genocide and who spoke about the profound hurt caused by the ongoing denial of the genocide, the importance of memory for a people who were once targeted for annihilation, and the stories of loss (family members, land, villages, towns, sacred areas--such as Mount Ararat, located only 40 kilometers from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, but impossible to reach due to the closed border with Turkey--churches and other cultural monuments). (Contains 4 notes.)

An examination of big-city newspaper coverage of violent crimes in small towns during a recent five-year period reveals a remarkable degree of uniformity in the language reporters use to characterize life in these places. The cliches signal an underlying set of stereotypes of small-town life: They are safe, close-knit communities where bad things are "not supposed to happen." Yet the point of the stories is that bad things do happen. Drawing upon culturological and sociological approaches to the study of news production, this paper argues that the small towns described in the news are symbolic landscapes that reflect a pastoral orientation among journalists and in the culture at large. (Contains 2 tables and 5 footnotes.)

Compares the American and British experiences in the demoralizing of society to England's Victorian Age and argues that society's moral condition is deteriorating--a trend that constitutes a threat to society's future. Various statistical evidence is presented, as well as examples stemming from economic, material, and political factors. (GLR)

Donohue and Levitt (2001) presented evidence that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s played an important role in the crime drop of the 1990s. That paper concluded with a strong out-of-sample prediction regarding the next two decades: "When a steady state is reached roughly twenty years from now, the impact of abortion will be roughly twice as great as the impact felt so far. Our results suggest that all else equal, legalized abortion will account for persistent declines of 1% a year in crime over the next two decades." Estimating parallel specifications to the original paper, but using the seventeen years of data generated after that paper was written, we find strong support for the prediction and the broad hypothesis, while illuminating some previously unrecognized patterns of crime and arrests. We estimate that overall crime fell 17.5% from 1998 to 2014 due to legalized abortion—a decline of 1% per year. From 1991 to 2014, the violent and property crime rates each fell by 50%. Legalized abortion is estimated to have reduced violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33% over this period, and thus can explain most of the observed crime decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Introduction: The epidemic of gun violence in the United States (US) is exacerbated by frequent mass shootings. In 2021, there were 698 mass shootings in the US, resulting in 705 deaths and 2,830 injuries. This is a companion paper to a publication in JAMA Network Open, in which the nonfatal outcomes of victims of mass shootings have been only partially described. Methods: We gathered clinical and logistic information from 31 hospitals in the US about 403 survivors of 13 mass shootings, each event involving greater than 10 injuries, from 2012-19. Local champions in emergency medicine and trauma surgery provided clinical data from electronic health records within 24 hours of a mass shooting. We organized descriptive statistics of individual-level diagnoses recorded in medical records using International Classification of Diseases codes, according to the Barell Injury Diagnosis Matrix (BIDM), a standardized tool that classifies 12 types of injuries within 36 body regions. Results: Of the 403 patients who were evaluated at a hospital, 364 sustained physical injuries—252 by gunshot wound (GSW) and 112 by non-ballistic trauma—and 39 were uninjured. Fifty patients had 75 psychiatric diagnoses. Nearly 10% of victims came to the hospital for symptoms triggered by, but not directly related to, the shooting, or for exacerbations of underlying conditions. There were 362 gunshot wounds recorded in the Barell Matrix (1.44 per patient). The Emergency Severity Index (ESI) distribution was skewed toward higher acuity than typical for an emergency department (ED), with 15.1% ESI 1 and 17.6% ESI 2 patients. Semi-automatic firearms were used in 100% of these civilian public mass shootings, with 50 total weapons for 13 shootings (Route 91 Harvest Festival, Las Vegas. 24). Assailant motivations were reported to be associated with hate crimes in 23.1%. Conclusion: Survivors of mass shootings have substantial morbidity and characteristic injury distribution, but 37% of victims had no GSW. Law enforcement, emergency medical systems, and hospital and ED disaster planners can use this information for injury mitigation and public policy planning. The BIDM is useful to organize data regarding gun violence injuries. We call for additional research funding to prevent and mitigate interpersonal firearm injuries, and for the National Violent Death Reporting System to expand tracking of injuries, their sequelae, complications, and societal costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to highlight some implications of the creation of closed, culturally alien communities and the possible consequences of their functioning from a criminological and victimological perspective. Various processes emerging since about the second half of the 20Thcentury, in Europe as well as in the United States of America, have caused cultural transformations leading to the emergence of cultural pluralism (polyculturalism, multiculturalism) in various forms. This represents one of the greatest challenges of the modern world on many levels, including prophylaxis and crime prevention. Of particular concern is the issue of assessing the behaviour of an offender belonging to a closed, culturally different group. variants of such a situation can be considered - when the perpetrator and the victim belong to culturally different communities or the same one, and depending on whether the perpetrator's behaviour constitutes an act judged negatively in the closed group to which they belong or whether it fulfils the characteristics of a crime in the legal system of the external community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]