Tracking the Impact of COVID-19 on Community-Based Intervention Programs for Justice-Involved Youth: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study

The aim of this study is to explore the challenges facing community-based intervention programs designed for justice-involved young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted four focus groups with practitioners working in community-based intervention programs at the onset and decline of the pandemic in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021, respectively. The results suggest that there was ample preparation for programs earlier during the pandemic but that unforeseen challenges still arose. Moreover, the results obtained from the second round of focus groups, which coincided with the rollout of the vaccines, suggest that practitioners had to be creative to accomplish organizational goals during the pandemic. They also suggest that, for the sake of future practice, much can be learned from the experience of working to rehabilitate justice-involved minority youth during the pandemic. Feedback from practitioners can help identify recommendations for community-based interventions in the future

Aggressive Reality Docuseries and Cyberbullying: A Partial Test of Glaser’s Differential Identification Theory

Reality docuseries have dominated primetime airwaves for the greater part of three decades. However, little is known about how viewers who are enamored with the genre’s most aggressive characters are influenced. Using Glaser’s (1956) theory of differential identification, this study employs survey data from 210 college students at a historically Black college and university to explore whether identification with characters from aggressive reality docuseries (ARDs) and the frequency of viewing ARD are positively associated with cyberbullying. Results of multivariate analyses revealed that men were more likely than women to publicly shame others and air other’s dirty laundry online. Additionally, the frequency of viewing ARDs was positively associated with all cyberbullying outcomes, while identification with ARD characters was positively associated with trolling others online. This study contributes to an emerging body of literature about the impact of viewing reality television on antisocial behavior