Drug use and offending: the relationship over the teenage years

Drug use and offending by young people are often assumed to be closely, or even causally related. However, a review of the literature shows that the relationship is complex and dynamic. This thesis aims to describe and explain how drug use and offending are linked over the teenage years. There is a lack of UK based longitudinal research on the topic, especially that which combines quantitative and qualitative methods. This research was conducted in association with the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, a longitudinal study. For the purposes of this thesis I carried out secondary analysis of six sweeps of annual self-report questionnaire data, from age 12 to 17.1 also conducted in-depth interviews with 27 cohort members at age 18 to 19. Findings suggest that the relationship between drug use and offending is stronger earlier (as opposed to later) in the teenage years. The social meaning of drug use changes over this period. Early onset drug users described having 'nothing to do' and engaged in drug use and offending in street-based peer groups. Those who did not begin using other drugs until later in their teens portrayed their drug use as a legitimate life experience, quite separate from offending.Young people's drug use and offending can be explained with reference to different levels of informal social control and peer group interactions. Opportunity structures, which change over the course of the teenage years, are shaped by sociostructural positions and informal social controls. It is within the context of peer group interactions that the social acceptability of behaviours may be defined, drug use and offending opportunities occur and decisions are made. Involvement in offending weakens social bonds and deepens involvement in deviant contexts, leading to drug use or further offending. However, 'turning points' such as starting one's own family, gaining employment or changing friendship group facilitate the reduction of involvement in offending and drug use. Social bonding and peer group contexts are central to explaining drug use and offending, but drug use can also have a distinct role and be explained differently to offending

Applying Feminist Poststructuralism as a Framework for Exploring Infant Feeding Interactions in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Childbearing/rearing families in Canada face a variety of conflicting discourses related to infant feeding, entrenched in a complex web of gendered, social, institutional and political discourses. For parents of preterm and/or critically ill infants, this area remains largely under-explored through a feminist lens. We offer a critical examination of the applicability of feminist poststructuralism (FPS) as a theory to explore infant feeding interactions in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Scholarly literature from diverse perspectives, including nursing, healthcare, gender studies, and social sciences is critiqued and the use of FPS as a guiding framework for nursing research and praxis is discussed. We discuss FPS and the relevance of various discourses to explore the phenomenon of infant feeding interactions in the NICU. Ultimately, we propose that FPS does offer a relevant lens through which to critically examine infant feeding interactions and bring voice to the complex processes embedded in the NICU

Independent review – Independent advisory group on new and emerging technologies in policing: final report

This report explores a rights based, transparent, evidence-based, legal, ethical and socially responsible approach to adopting emerging technologies in policing, in a manner that upholds public confidence and safety. Alongside the importance of legal frameworks centred on human rights, equalities and data protection, it highlights the consideration of ethical and social implications, the key role of research evidence, consultation and public engagement and scientific standards in technological innovation and the centrality of robust mechanisms to ensure oversight and scrutiny. The report draws together the work the Independent Advisory Group on Emerging Technologies in Policing (ETIAG) undertaken collectively over the past two years

Are risk factors for drug use and offending similar during the teenage years?

BackgroundThis paper explores whether at different stages of the developmental cycle of adolescence, drug use and offending are associated with a similar set of risk factors relating to: socio-structural position, informal social control, deviant peer group contexts, and deviant lifestyle behaviours.MethodsMultivariate regression was used to analyse data from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC) self-report questionnaire.ResultsEarly in the teenage years drug use was associated with a similar set of factors to offending. These include weak bonds to parents and teachers, and deviant lifestyle behaviours. However, later in the teenage years there were differences, e.g. drug use was associated with higher socio-economic status and importance of school, and a number of factors which were associated with offending were not associated with drug use, e.g. parent-child conflict, gang membership and hanging around.ConclusionResults show that the factors included here are more appropriate to understanding offending than drug use. Different risk factors are associated with drug use and offending in the older, but not younger teens. It is argued that later in the teenage years drug use should be understood and addressed differently to offending. This is particularly important given the tendency for the ‘drugs problem’ to increasingly be dealt with as a ‘crime problem’ (Duke, 2006)

Crime prevention and the development of the Safer Communities Evidence Matrix Scotland (SCEMS).

THE Safer Communities Evidence Matrix Scotland (SCEMS) is a knowledge exchange tool which aims to provide easy access to evidence on policing and community safety from Scotland andfarther afield. It has emerged against the backdrop of a collaborative working arrangement between the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) and the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) at George Mason University (GMU). The collaborationformed from SIPR and CEBCP’s mutual interest and leadership in not only generating impactful research, but translating and exchanging research and analysis into practical outputs for policing

‘Free text is essentially the enemy of what we’re trying to achieve’: the framing of a national vision for delivering digital police contact

Police organisations in England and Wales, as in many other contexts, are increasingly shifting crime reporting and other public-facing contact online. In this paper we explore the beliefs, motivations, and objectives of those tasked with ‘delivering’ the ‘vision’ of digital police contact at the strategic national level. We use Goffman’s concept of frames – the set of expectations an actor brings to a situation or process – to understand how participants enacted this 'channel shift’ (Wells et al., 2023), the ends they were seeking to meet, and how different interests came to be designed-in to the contact architecture. We suggest that the primary frame centred around notions of efficiency and demand management. Running alongside this is a secondary frame of customer service, where it is assumed that the public also wish for the efficient delivery of this technologically mediated service. This, we suggest, is likely to be only a partial reflection of what people want when contacting police; but the framing of 'contact’ as a separate deliverable by those delivering this agenda serves to occlude or evade this point. Technology, we argue, imprints itself on the context by appearing to offer a convenient solution to problems of public wants and police needs

Achieving cultural change through organizational justice: the case of Stop and Search in Scotland

In recent years, the scale, impact and legality of stop and search in Scotland has been subject to intense critical scrutiny, leading to major legal and policy reform in 2016. Based on these events, including an early unsuccessful attempt by Police Scotland to reform the tactic (the ‘Fife Pilot’), this paper presents original theoretical and empirical insights into organizational change in policing. Building on the theoretical perspectives of Chan (1997) and Bradford and Quinton (2014) on organizational culture and justice respectively, the paper set out a dynamic model of organizational justice in policing. While Scotland has seen significant legislative reform apropos stop and search, we conclude that real change in police practice and culture will require effective leadership and a strong commitment to organizational justice. We also suggest how insights from the analysis might be applied to other jurisdictions and policing fields, with a view to securing more citizen-focused, democratic policing