Lonely Too Long: Redefining and Reforming Juvenile Solitary Confinement.

Solitary confinement is a frequently used penal tool in all fifty states against all types of offenders. However, since its development in the 1800s, solitary confinement has been found to have damaging psychological effects. Juvenile inmates in particular suffer the greatest psychological damage from solitary confinement because their brains are still in a developmental state. This has led many to propose various reforms that would either end or limit the use of solitary confinement for those under the age of eighteen. However, new neurological studies on brain development show that inmates between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five also suffer similar psychological harms and therefore should be included in these reforms. Pulling from these new neurological studies, this Note proposes federal legislation that would limit the use of solitary confinement for inmates under the age of twenty-five.

Return of separated children: the impact of Dutch policies.

In many European countries, both the voluntary and the forced return of rejected asylum seekers are problematic. In the case of separated children, the difficulties seem to be even greater. In the Netherlands, many of these children disappear from the reception centres for unknown destinations, instead of returning to their home country. The new, stricter return policies adopted by the Dutch government in recent years have not (yet) changed this situation.In an explorative study of separated children aged between 15 and 18, the implementation and results of these policies were studied. The impact of the activities designed to promote voluntary return appeared to be very limited. Most separated young people did not want to consider return and did not take any action in this regard. Forced return rarely constituted a viable alternative. These findings may be explained by several factors. Among other things, considerations pertaining to personal security, family circumstances, and structural conditions in the countries of origin influence both the attitudes and behaviours of separated children, and host government policies. Moreover, many children were not willing to discuss their return with the youth care workers who were supposed to discuss and promote a voluntary return with them. The fact that most of the young people were allowed to stay in the reception centres until their eighteenth birthday enabled them to postpone making a final decision. A forced return was hindered by such obstacles as the absence of documents and the lack of appropriate care in the country of origin. More insight into the backgrounds of separated children and the (im)possibilities regarding their return seems necessary to be able to design more effective return policies.

Consequences of black exceptionalism? Interracial unions with blacks, depressive symptoms, and relationship satisfaction.

Using data from Wave 4 (2008) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 7,466), we examine potential consequences of black exceptionalism in the context of interracial relationships among nonblack respondents. While increasing racial diversity and climbing rates of interracial unions have fostered the notion that racial boundaries within the United States are fading, our results add to the accumulating evidence that racial/ethnic boundaries persist in U.S. society. Results suggest that among non-Black respondents there is more stigma and disapproval attached to relationships with Blacks than there are to relationships with members of other racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, our results indicate that nonblack individuals with black partners have significantly more depressive symptoms and less relationship satisfaction than their counterparts with nonblack partners, regardless of respondent race and whether the nonblack partner is the same versus a different race from the respondent. Further, the relationship between partner race and depressive symptoms is partially and significantly mediated by relationship satisfaction.

Making sense of adolescent decision-making: challenge and reality.

Few topics in pediatric bioethics are as vexing as decision-making. Decision-making in pediatrics presents challenges for children, parents, and physicians alike. The related, yet distinct, concepts of assent and consent are central to pediatric decision-making. Although informed consent is largely regarded as a worthwhile adult principle, assent has been, and continues to be, mired in debate. Controversial subjects include a meaningful definition of assent; how old children should be to assent; who should be included in the assent process; parental permission; how to resolve disputes between children and their parents; the relationship between assent and consent; the quantity and quality of information to disclose to children and their families; how much and what information children desire and need; the necessity and methods for assessing both children's understanding of disclosed information and of the assent process itself; reconciling ethical and legal attitudes toward assent; and finally, an effective, practical, and realistically applicable decision-making model.

Family transitions and juvenile delinquency.

There is a large body of research that shows children from non-intact homes show higher rates of juvenile delinquency than children from intact homes, partially due to weaker parental control and supervision in non-intact homes. What has not been adequately addressed in the research is the influence of changes in family structure among individual adolescents over time on delinquent offending. Using the first and third waves of the National Youth Study, we assess the effect of family structure changes on changes in delinquent offending between waves through the intermediate process of changes in family time and parental attachment. Although prior research has documented adolescents in broken homes are more delinquent than youth in intact homes, the process of family dissolution is not associated with concurrent increases in offending. In contrast, family formation through marriage or cohabitation is associated with simultaneous increases in offending. Changes in family time and parental attachment account for a portion of the family formation effect on delinquency, and prior parental attachment and juvenile offending significantly condition the effect of family formation on offending.

"Use" them or "lose" them: engaging Liberia's disconnected youth through socio-political integration .

The war that ravaged Liberia between 1989 and 2003 had myriad causes and belligerents, but there can be little question of the demographic cohort that provided the manpower for the war machine: youth. Young, disconnected Liberians became easy recruits to the conflict's warring factions as they sought a sense of importance and independence away from the cultural background that marginalized them. Building on qualitative field research in Liberia, this article bridges its primary case study with theory and secondary data, to examine the threat of post-war re-marginalization and disengagement of youth in the country. The article argues that economic reintegration programmes have not addressed issues of youth empowerment directly enough, and that targeted political and social engagement strategies from a vertical and horizontal integration perspective would be more effective in the re-engagement of youth in civilian life.

Mother abuse: a matter of youth justice, child welfare or domestic violence?

International evidence suggests that in advanced welfare states the abuse of parents, most particularly mothers, by their (most frequently male) adolescent children is increasingly prevalent. In the United Kingdom, however, child-to-mother abuse remains one of the most under-acknowledged and under-researched forms of family violence. Although it is an issue shrouded in silence, stigma, and shame, the authors' work in the youth justice sphere, focusing on interventions to deal with anti-social behaviour, suggests that adolescent violence toward mothers is a topical and prevalent issue. We identify different ways of conceptualizing it in the policy realms of youth justice, child welfare, and domestic violence. The behaviour of both child/young person and mother is constructed in ways which inform the assignment of blame and responsibility. The paper highlights the silence that surrounds the issue in both the policy and wider academic spheres, hiding the failure of service providers to respond to this very destructive form of intimate interpersonal violence.

Tackling tensions and ambivalences: Armenian girls' diasporic identities in Russia.

Research on diasporic youth identities in the British and American context has stressed hybridity, heterogeneity and multiplicity. This paper draws upon ethnographic research undertaken with Armenian girls to explore some of the tensions and ambivalences of negotiating diasporic identities in the Russian context. Diasporic identities are constructed through gender, and this paper illustrates how research participants negotiate their identities in relation to both belonging to the Armenian community and wider Russian society. At the same time, this paper examines how research participants draw differently on diasporic identifications in order to overcome tensions and ambivalences in their everyday lives. The paper shows that research participants are not inclined to reject their cultural roots in favor of new hybrid identities, but are able to recognize and appropriate different cultures in their identity negotiations.

Should the science of adolescent brain development inform public policy?

One factor that has contributed to confusion in discussions of the use of adolescent neuroscience in the development of public policies affecting young people is a blurring of three very different issues that need to be separated: (a) what science does and does not say about brain development in adolescence; (b) what neuroscience does and does not imply for the understanding of adolescent behavior; and (c) what these implications suggest for public policy. In this article, the author argues that a good deal is known about adolescent brain development, that this knowledge has in fact been useful in shaping our understanding of adolescent behavior, and that neuroscience, like behavioral science, can usefully inform policy discussions. He cautions, however, that nonexperts may be unduly swayed by neuroscience evidence and thus that such evidence should be presented with special care.

Caribbean and Filipino adolescents' and parents' perceptions of parental authority, physical punishment, and cultural values and their relation to migratory characteristics.

This article describes the perceptions of parents and adolescents of physical punishment in relation to family and migratory characteristics. Adolescents and their parents of Caribbean (n=118) and of Filipino (n=136) heritage responded to questions on their attitude toward physical discipline, their family relations, and their socio-demographic and migratory characteristics. Data analyses show that many Caribbean (78%) and Filipino (41.9%) parents perceive that they should have the right to physically punish their children, while youth disagree with this. The dissonance between parents' and their children's attitudes is related to acculturation factors due to the earlier and more intense exposure of youth to their host society. Further studies should be conducted on the impact of the divergence between parents and their youth's opinions on the actual shifts in power in the parent-child relationship, as well as on immigrant parents' discipline strategies and on the family's adaptation to the challenges of migration.

Abuso sexual infantojuvenil estudio comparativo entre el abuso sexual intrafamiliar y extrfamiliar / Infant juvenile sexual abuse comparative study between the intrafamiliar and extrafamilia sexual abuse

Se realiza un estudio observacional analítico y retrospectivo sobre una muestra de 140 casos de niños y adolescentes entre 1 mes y 19 años de edad, que sufrieron Abuso Sexual (AS), con el objeto de detectar y comparar las áreas de funcionamiento psíquico afectadas, como la existencia y tipo de expresiones psicopatológicas en los casos de AS incestuoso y no incestuoso, en estos últimos incluida la variable de perpetuación. Los menores fueron asistidos en un período comprendido entre abril de 1989 y abril de 1998 por el Equipo de Asistencia de Urgencia Interdisciplinaria del Comité de Abuso Sexual del Hospital de Niños de la Santísima Trinidad de Córdoba, Argentina. Se realizó una atención integral a partir de la aplicación de una metodología interdisciplinaria. Se incluyeron los casos en los que se pudo determinar la probabilidad de AS, el conocimiento del tipo de relación del victimario con la víctima, la consumación del abuso por un único victimario y la disponibilidad de datos registrados suficientes para caracterizar el tipo de funcionamiento psíquico. Los enfoques diagnósticos y terapéuticos utilizados fueron el Genético Dinámico Profundo de la Dra. Telma Reca y el Elaborativo-Dinámico-Interaccional de la Dra. Anny Speier para el abordaje familiar. El Diagnóstico se estableció según las Clasificaciones DSM IV (americana) y CFTMEA-R-2000 (francesa), que tienen en cuenta la dimensión multiaxial esencial en psicopatología, a fin de complementar diferentes enfoques. Se evaluaron: el grado de deterioro o incapacidad relacionable a la afectación psicopatológica según la Escala de Evaluación de la Actividad Global (EEAG) adaptada a niños (C- GAS), la relación del grupo familiar de convivencia durante la ocurrencia del AS según la Escala de Evaluación Global de la Actividad Relacional (EEGAR) y el grado de severidad del Trastorno por Estrés Postraumático según la PTSS-C-Scale. Se relacionaron las evaluaciones con variables seleccionadas.

Ethical issues in adolescent consent for research.

Different opinions are expressed in the literature regarding when children and adolescents can start to make decisions to participate in research and give informed consent. Nurses are frequently involved in research, either as investigators or caregivers, and must therefore have a thorough understanding of consent and related issues. In this article the issues are explored from a Canadian perspective. The argument is put forward that adolescents may be capable of a greater involvement in the research consent process than is the norm. Increasing adolescents' involvement in research has the potential to enhance their growing autonomy and capabilities. Adolescents appreciate being treated with respect and dignity by adults. This can be achieved in an environment in which protection from harm does not also mean prevention from decision making. The use of empowering processes by nurses to enhance adolescent involvement will provide benefit to adolescents in their transition to adult levels of responsibility.

Informing juvenile justice policy: directions for behavioral science research.

Recent policy initiatives threaten to reduce the rehabilitative mission of the juvenile court or eliminate the court entirely. This article lays out a framework for an empirical assessment of these developments. It first evaluates the available and potential empirical support for three hypotheses about juveniles that might justify maintaining a separate, rehabilitation-oriented juvenile justice system: the hypotheses that, compared to adults, juveniles are more treatable, less culpable, and less deterrable. On the assumption that the continued existence of a rehabilitation-oriented juvenile court can be justified, it then provides suggestions as to how existing intervention strategies for juveniles could benefit from research attention to several substantive and methodological issues. These include refining outcome criteria and sampling strategies, matching offender and program characteristics, reexamining intervention efficacy, and focusing on decision makers and resource allocations.